


I Don't Care If I Never Get Back

by deirdre_c



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Baseball, Bottom Jared, Happily Ever After, Hurt Jensen, M/M, Top Jensen, damaged jensen, field of dreams - Freeform, if you build it he will come, yes that kind of come too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 18:44:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8412508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deirdre_c/pseuds/deirdre_c
Summary: When a stranger barges into Jensen’s apartment and insists he must take Jensen to a major league baseball game, Jensen’s first, second, and third impulses are to kick the guy out on his ass. But if he can just get past that third, Jensen may find he can make it home.A magical baseball love story, based on the 1989 movie Field of Dreams.





	

“Get out.”

Jensen dislikes strangers in general, on principle. He dislikes strangers who try to talk to him even more. But his deepest dislike is reserved for strangers who barge into his own goddamn apartment uninvited and try to talk to him.

“Mr. Ackles, if I could just have a minute of your time.”

The guy’s big. Six four or five at least, and built. Jensen works out, but he’s got the gimp knee and really wouldn’t stand a chance here if the guy rushes him. He puts the dining table between himself and the intruder. “I don’t sign autographs. I don’t give interviews. I’m no longer a celebrity, so fuck off.”

“But—“ 

“How did you even get in here?” Jensen demands. It’s been almost a decade since the paparazzi followed him around, years since fans finally stopped harassing him on the street for pictures or begging him to say a line from one of his movies. When he’d left Hollywood, he’d found himself a nondescript building on Manhattan’s West Side with tight security and nowadays rarely goes out. He’s forgotten what it’s like to be harassed like this. 

The guy holds up a plastic bag. “You ordered Kung Pao and egg drop soup? Wei let me take over delivery today.”

Goddammit. Betrayed by his favorite takeout place. “I swear I will sue his ass. He’ll wish he’d never opened a restaurant.”

“No, no, it’s not his fault,” the guy insists, waving the bag like a white flag. “I’m just, I don’t know, really persuasive.”

Jensen can’t believe it. The guy’s actually smiling hopefully at him, like that’s going to make everything okay. He’s heard the phrase of someone’s eyes twinkling, but he’d never seen it on a real person. The dimples are a nice touch, too. 

This is exactly how Ted Bundy got to people, isn’t it? 

“Get out.”

“Please—“ 

“Get the hell out, I said.” 

“Please, Mr. Ackles, listen. My name’s Jared Padalecki and I’ve driven 1100 miles and risked losing my farm simply to take you to a baseball game.”

Now that’s a new one on Jensen. “Just how many psychiatric professionals are you seeing?”

The guy—Jared—laughs. It’s a nice laugh. Not exactly the laugh of a psychopath. “Yeah, I know. It sounds ludicrous. But, honestly, I’m the least crazy person I know.”

“Well, crazy or not, this is my home,” Jensen deliberately pitches his voice low and menacing, “and if you don’t leave in the next three seconds, I’m going to call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing. I hope you enjoy jail cells.”

“Wait—“ 

“One.”

“Mr. Ackles—“

“Two.” Jensen reaches across the table for his cell. 

“I didn’t want to do it this way.” Jared slips a hand into his jacket pocket and gestures with it, jutting it forward. “Now come with me.”

God, the look on his face. Jensen’s seen bad acting in his time. Hell, Jensen’s _perpetrated_ some seriously bad acting in his time. This may be among the all-time worst. 

“What’s that?” Jensen scoffs.

“It’s a gun, what do you think it is?”

“It’s your finger!”

“It is not,” Jared replies, absurdly affronted. 

Jensen sighs, then turns without a word and heads into the bedroom.

“Hey,” Jared calls. “Where are you going?”

Jensen pulls the Beretta out of his side table drawer, double checks to make sure it’s not loaded, then holds it out extended in one hand, tilted sideways, like they taught him on the set of _Full Armor_ in order to look particularly badass. 

He strides back out into the living room, disguising his limp as best he can, pointing the gun somewhere over Jared’s left shoulder, but making it look like he’s aiming for a head shot. “So, this is a real gun. And you are really, for real going to leave now.”

One look at him and Jared trips frantically backward, fumbling over his own feet and falling smack onto his ass. Jensen would be tempted to laugh, if he weren’t so annoyed by the whole thing.

And yet the guy _still_ doesn’t shut up. 

“I read in an interview once,” Jared babbles, looking pleadingly up from the floor, “that you played center field in high school, that you wanted to go to the majors, that you landed a college scholarship before you blew out your knee and turned to acting instead.” He says the words like an incantation, like a spell that will enchant Jensen into a receptive mood.

Jensen rolls his eyes. Typical fanboy reciting biographical details at Jensen like he knows the first thing about him. “That was all macho bullshit made up by my publicists. 100% fiction. I was a cheerleader in high school, for chrissake. My knee was perfectly fine until—” he stumbles over the words, just barely. “—until a car accident.”

“Oh.” It’s as if all the energy drains out of the guy’s body. He slumps forward and runs a hand through his already untidy mop of hair. He murmurs to himself, “How did I get this so wrong?” He glances up, contrite, chastened. “I apologize for bothering you this way, Mr. Ackles.” He clambers to his feet and heads for the door. 

And for a second, a frisson runs through Jensen, a quick jag of bright ice shooting from the base of his skull to his toes. Five seconds ago he couldn’t wait to get rid of this guy. Suddenly, he’s certain that if Jared walks out the door and leaves him standing here alone in the still, stale, familiar air of the apartment, he’ll regret it.

“Wait.” A sliver of hope blinks alive again in Jared’s eyes as he looks over his shoulder, and Jensen hates himself for encouraging it. Stupid. So incredibly stupid. “Is this a kidnapping? A publicity stunt? What’s your deal?”

“I have to take you to a baseball game,” Jared repeats simply. “Tonight. Mets versus the Phillies.”

“Why?”

“Something’s going to happen there, something we need to see. I’m not sure what, but… but I have the feeling it’s important. I know that seems flaky, but it’s all I got.”

“A feeling?”

“I’ve felt something like this before and, well, let’s just say it’s a long story.” A little grin curls the corner of Jared’s mouth, flashing that damned dimple again. He pulls a set of keys out of his pocket and jingles them. “But I could tell you about it along the way?”

Jensen feels a sensation tug at him, something barely remembered, and he realizes… it’s curiosity. He can’t remember the last time he went looking for an adventure, a challenge, anything that popped him out of the comfortable bubble he’s been sheltering in. “The Mets game,” he says warily. “And that’s all?”

“Yeah. After tonight, you’ll never hear from me ever again.”

Jensen looks down at his hand that still grips the gun, forgotten. He turns and shoves it under a cushion on the couch, then hobbles over to grab the nondescript ballcap that he never leaves home without from its hook by the door. He pushes past Jared and starts towards the elevators.

“Fuck it. Let’s go. And, for the record, kidnappers call me Jensen.”

 

***

 

When they get down to the street, Jensen finds that Jared drives an ancient, robin’s-egg blue split-window VW bus, the metal over the wheel-wells chewed by rust, the front bumper graced with a fist-sized dent. It makes him like Jared a little bit better. And the guy’s somehow landed himself a parking spot on the street right in front of Jensen’s building, which makes Jared’s claims to strange magic a bit more believable as well.

He doesn’t know if it irks or gratifies him that Jared shortens his pace to match Jensen’s slower one. At least Jared has the sense not to mention the limp. When they reach the van, Jared unlocks the door with a real key to let him in, but doesn’t open it for him or help him inside. Smart man.

As Jensen sits down on the stiff, flaking seat cushion, the hinges inside squeak in protest. Jared slides behind the wheel and cranks the key in the ignition once, twice, before the engine coughs to life and they pull away.

Jensen doesn’t ride in cars often. Never drives anymore. He forces himself to sit back, settle, tries to behave like a normal person, when really he feels like flinging the door open and throwing himself out. “Do you do this frequently?” he asks, voice steady as a rock. “The whole abducting strangers thing?”

“No. You’re the first. And, I hope, the last,” Jared replies with that same easy smile he has. As if there’s nothing at all odd about him asking for this and Jensen accepting. 

“That’s a good plan. Because you kind of suck at it.”

They ride in silence for a while as Jared navigates the cross-town traffic, taking 84th where it bisects Central Park and up FDR. Jensen’s doing pretty well, if he does say so himself. He just hopes Jared doesn’t ask why Jensen’s got a white-knuckle grip on the door handle. When they head over the Kennedy Bridge toward Queens, Jared says, “Would you like me to bore you with that long story now?”

“Sure,” Jensen says. He’ll take anything that’ll distract from the tumult of cars and trucks and the strangeness of rolling through city streets that aren’t Manhattan’s.

“Well, I have a farm in Iowa. One day, out in the cornfield, I heard a Voice—“ And the longer Jared talks, the less Jensen notices the road.

 

***

 

They make the turn into the Citi Field parking lot as pedestrians wander suicidally into the intersections and across all lanes of traffic toward the stadium. He sees Jared glance at the acres of already-full lots encircling the park like the world’s largest car dealership, and then turn the VW toward the nearest gate. The look on the valet’s face when Jared pulls up is priceless.

Jensen gets out, and Jared’s already got two tickets that he pulls out of his wallet.

“You were so certain I’d come?” Jensen asks, raising one eyebrow.

“Not certain, but hopeful,” Jared replies with a shrug.

They make their way through the turnstiles and into the maze of ramps leading up to the seats. Jensen pulls his cap a little lower down over his brow, wishing it were a daytime game so he could wear sunglasses. But only douchebags wear sunglasses at night.

“So I’ve told you my story, what about yours?” Jared asks as couples and families and packs of middle-aged drunk dudes, their faces painted orange, throng past them in the stadium’s concrete thoroughfare. “I’m guessing you don’t really want to talk about your movies.”

“You guessed right.”

“So what do you want?” Jared asks.

Jensen stops and turns to look at him. “I want people to stop coming up to me demanding I make some sequel, or that I fight them as if I’m really a super-spy instead of playing one on film. I want them to stop gawking at me like a bearded lady in a backwoods carnival. I want my privacy. I want to sleep without pills. I want to be able to run a mile. I want to never hurt anyone again. Mostly, I don’t want to want things, period!”

“Okay,” Jared drawls, gentle like he’s soothing a barking dog. Then he points at the concession stand menu, and Jensen realizes suddenly they’re in line for snacks. “I was just wondering what you _want_?”

“Oh,” Jensen feels his face heat up, hopes to hell he’s not blushing. “A dog and a beer.” He’s not even hungry, but that’s what regular people order at the ballgame, right?

 

***

 

When they get to the stands, Jensen doesn’t let slip his dismay at the long plunge of stairs to the seats. He just sucks it up and makes his way downward, his pace an embarrassing lumber, too slow. He has to go one step at a time, his left hand clutching tight around the iron rail running down the center, the other trying not to spill his drink. Jared trails behind. Eventually they settle into their seats. Pretty good seats, directly behind the Mets’ on-deck circle. The only problem is they’re squeezed in tighter than the backseat of a Cooper Mini, and Jared’s practically eating his own knees. Jensen can’t remember the last time he was at a sporting event, but he’d bet he probably watched it from some studio exec’s luxury suite while drinking five hundred dollar whiskey on the rocks.

Jared tosses him a rueful smile. “Guess I should have bought us three tickets so we could leave the one in the middle empty for room.” 

Jared’s muscled shoulder brushes his, their elbows knock on the armrest, eventually their thighs sit pressed side-by-side. Jensen can feel the body heat that Jared’s radiating, and an unexpected twinge of lust hits him low in the gut. Jared’s not at all the type of guy Jensen would ever have gone for in the past—gigantic, corn-fed, flannel-wearing nutcase that he is—and this is _so_ not the place or time. But he hasn’t felt something like it in a long while, and it’s not a bad feeling. At all. 

The first batter comes up and the game starts. It ebbs, flows. Some guy gets a single and chats up the first baseman while the catcher saunters out to the mound. Organ music bleats out a hit pop song. Jensen doesn’t know either team’s players, but it doesn’t matter; baseball is baseball. 

Jared holds up two little notecards, asks if Jensen wants to keep score. Jensen shakes his head. He’s busy marinating in memories. Of sitting with his dad in front of the television as the Astros blow a ninth-inning lead. Of a walk-off home run in pee-wee Little League, his teammates tackling him in a giant pile at the plate. Of breaking in a new glove. Of standing on base brushing off the dirt after a great slide. He lets all of it wash over him, things he hasn’t thought of in years and years. 

Then, something happens in the fifth inning. The score is tied, and Jared is hoping aloud that the guy selling peanuts will be back around soon. But his voice starts to fade, and slowly so do all the background sounds of the crowd. 

In the eerie quiet, Jensen looks up at the scoreboard. The regular stats and images and advertisements found there scramble and fade and resolve themselves into three simple lines. The words and figures in it glow brighter than a bolt of lightning, phosphorescent, and sear into his retinas the same way.

**Aldis “Moonlight” Hodge**

**Detroit Tigers, 1948**

**Lifetime statistics: 1 game, 0 at bats**

He searches the faces of the spectators around him, but from the lack of surprise or attention they’re paying to the scoreboard, no one else seems to notice. He sees Jared from the corner of his eye, head down, writing something on his scorecard, but he can’t tell if it’s the scoreboard message or simply something ordinary related to the game.

Then Jensen hears a Voice. 

**“Go the distance.”**

It rings in his ears like the stadium speaker had been relocated just behind his right shoulder. But not loud. Not soft either. It reminds him of his father’s voice. Of his high school drama teacher’s. Of God’s. 

Between movie shoots, hanging out in L.A. in his heyday, Jensen had experimented with a lot of drugs, different kinds, different combinations. He wonders whether maybe he’s having some kind of bad trip flashback. Maybe it’s a brain aneurysm. He feels slightly giddy and sick, as if he’d just stepped off of a carnival tilt-a-whirl.

Next to him, Jared whispers, “Oh my god.” 

Jensen’s proud that his long-ingrained control over his expression holds firm, even under such freaky circumstances. He finds he can turn quite naturally to Jared and ask, “What’s the matter?” 

Jared looks at him as if staring up through sunlit water. “Did you see it?” 

He tries to answer, but his mouth won’t open. ‘No’ would be a lie, but to utter the word ‘yes’ out loud is unimaginable. 

After a moment, Jared sighs and rolls his shoulders awkwardly. “Never mind. I—I thought you needed to be here, but I guess I was wrong.” He stands, gathering up his empty drink cup. 

“Where are you going?” Jensen asks. 

“We’re done here. We can leave.” Jared starts up the steps without him and Jensen struggles to his feet to follow.

When he finally manages to get back to the concourse, he’s out of breath, his heart pounding not just from the climb, but with the worry that Jared will just keep on walking and leave him behind without some fucking explanation of what is happening here. It’s one thing to listen to Jared spin a tale of strange messages from beyond, it’s another to hear—something?—with his own ears. Jensen’s skull feels strangely hollow, wonderment and disbelief pinging around in the empty space inside.

He spies Jared leaning up against the cinderblock wall next to the upper level stairs, his head tilted back, eyes closed. 

“You got another message, didn’t you?” Jensen demands, phrasing it deliberately so as to see Jared’s hand without tipping his own. “What you told me before, about building a field in the corn, and about coming here to find me. You heard that Voice again.”

“You’ll think I’m crazy.” 

“I already think you’re crazy.” _And it’s communicable,_ Jensen thinks. _Who knew?_ “What did it say?”

After a little thought, Jared smiles wistfully and shakes his head. “It said, ‘Jensen Ackles has done enough. Leave him alone.’” He pushes himself up off the wall and starts off toward the exit. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

Before Jared can get two steps away, Jensen grabs his arm and swings him around. “Moonlight Hodge,” he blurts out.

Jared’s jaw visibly drops. “You saw it.”

“Saw what?” Jensen counters, still not prepared to admit more than he must. Still not believing it. Still hoping the Voice will speak again.

“Detroit Tigers. 1948. He played one game and never got to bat!” Jared’s voice is rising, he yanks his arm from Jensen’s grip and starts to pace excitedly.

“This is great! You saw it!” His grin damn near splits his face. Jensen’s still off-kilter, and Jared’s flurry of elation makes him itchy, irritated. Fine, he saw it. But where does that leave him now? It was so much easier when he could scoff at Jared’s story. There’s no place for magic or leaps-of-faith in the calm, safe little world he’s crafted so carefully these past few years. Now he feels as naked and exposed as a carrot ripped from the ground by a giant hand. 

“Did you hear the Voice too?” Jared asks.

“’Go the distance,’” Jensen repeats. It sends a shiver down his spine.

“Do you know what it means?” 

“I think it means we have to go find Moonlight Hodge.” He can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth, but as soon as he says them, he knows they’re true. Goddamn it.

“We?” Jared says it casually, but his ridiculous, open-book face is lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. 

“Yeah,” Jensen says, grudgingly. “We.” He turns and stumps down the stadium ramp, Jared yipping along at his heels.

 

***

 

Jared hands the valet their ticket when they reach the parking lot. While waiting for the van to be brought around, Jensen asks, “So where do we start?”

“How am I supposed to know? I’m just a corn farmer!” Jared says.

“And I’m just a washed-up actor,” Jensen snaps back, then lowers his voice so any random bystander doesn’t overhear. The VW pulls up. “You have more experience with this hoodoo than I do.”

“Hoo doo doo doo doo,” Jared sings nonsensically, practically leaping into the driver’s seat and bouncing with enthusiasm. “Why don’t we start with figuring out who Moonlight Hodge is?”

“Okay,” Jensen says, glad to have a task to ground him. “You drive, I’ll google.”

“Drive where?” Jared asks. 

“I don’t really care,” Jensen mutters as he pulls his phone from his jeans pocket and looks up Aldis Hodge and the Tigers. He falls down an Internet rabbit hole for a few minutes, and when he finally comes up for air, he looks over at Jared again.

“I have good news and bad news.”

“What?” Jared asks not taking his eyes from the road.

“The good news,” Jensen says, “is that I found Doctor Hodge’s address in Ecorse, Michigan, right outside Detroit.”

“ _Doctor_ , huh? Not bad for an ex-ballplayer. And the bad news?”

“He’s been dead for exactly a year.”

They exchange a glance, and Jensen expects to feel discouraged, thwarted before they even start, but instead he feels a pull westward, stronger than ever. Jensen notices they’re back on the bridge into Manhattan, but he has no intention of telling Jared to take him home. 

“Head for I-95 South,” he says, gesturing toward the big green highway sign ahead. “That’ll take us into Jersey to I-80 and on to Michigan.”

Jared’s eyes widen for a minute, and then he’s nodding, almost like he’s talking himself into it, too. “Okay,” Jensen hears him murmur to himself. “Okay. Okay.” 

They ride on for a few minutes before Jared pipes up again, “So how long do you want to keep on driving? I mean, we can find a place to stay, a Motel 6 or something, maybe just pull over at a rest stop, catch a few hours’ sleep, or—“ 

“I’d vote to keep driving,” Jensen says. The echo of screeching tires and crunching metal still haunts him, but there’s also a mystery out there in the dark, and its draw is stronger than the tide.

Jared’s return grin is boyish, tickled, as if relieved to have someone to share his secret, to welcome into his treehouse fort. “I know, I know. It’s weird. Exciting, yeah? Like falling in love? Hearing that Voice? You want the feeling to last forever, and there’s nothing you can’t do.”

Jensen just nods. He can’t remember ever falling in love. Maybe in love with a script, or a character. There were high school crushes on Texas boys that would have gotten him beaten bloody if ever acknowledged. There were hook-ups on movie sets, frantic and intense, that felt like love at the time, but in hindsight were just shallow, momentary thrills. Is that what this is? Just a fling? An impulse? 

They drive, nothing to see but oncoming headlights and mile markers and exit ramps they won’t be taking. The farther they travel, the more Jensen feels like a criminal, fleeing the clutches of the city behind them. He feels like a seasick sailor on his first voyage out of sight of land. He feels like an idiot. But just before he calls the whole thing to a halt, Jared reaches out to turn up the volume on the radio. He starts singing—god, _so_ badly—along with The Doobie Brothers, drumming his thumbs on the wheel.

Jensen’s heart rate slows to match the beat of the music. He leans back into his seat, rests his head so that he’s turned to watch Jared’s performance, and sings silently along.

 

***

 

They don’t stop that night except for food and gas. Once, at the counter in a brightly-lit truck stop convenience store, the woman behind the register rings up their chips and Big Gulps. As she takes a twenty from Jensen’s hand, her face lights up. “Hey! Hey, it’s you!”

Jensen steels himself. He doesn’t have to turn to feel Jared step up behind him, a solid wall behind his left shoulder, like a bodyguard or a guardian angel.

“You’re one of The Backstreet Boys, right?” she gushes on. “I loved you guys when I was a kid! Always wanted to see you in concert!”

The wall behind him coughs, sounding suspiciously like stifled laughter. Jensen can’t turn to look, or he might start laughing himself.

He simply gifts the cashier with the kind of look that once landed him an Oscar nomination and an ad campaign for Versace. “I get that a lot. But nope, never was lucky enough to be in a boy band.”

She blushes and hands back the change, and Jensen makes a quick retreat. 

As they clamber back into the van, Jared starts crooning in off-key falsetto. “Tell me why. Ain't nothin' but a heartache. Tell me why. Ain't nothin' but a miiiiistaaaake.”

“Fuck off.” Jensen punches him in the arm. But it’s got no force behind it. He totally deserves that one. 

A mile or so down the highway, he takes his ballcap off and tosses it into the back seat next to the empty Burger King bags and Jared’s extra pair of work boots. 

 

***

 

“So,” Jared drawls slowly. “What do you do there in the City? How do you fill the time?” Jared’s talked plenty about himself so far, and Jensen senses that he’s eager to ask some questions of his own.

“I don’t know,” Jensen temporizes. “I—um—I work out in my building’s gym. Walk in Central Park sometimes. Read. Mess around on the computer. I—I cook interesting recipes when I come across them. Was pretty into the whole culinary craze a couple of years back. Um, and I had my lawyers set up a couple of charity foundations and I sit on their Boards.” 

It’s nothing. A boring, limited, lackluster existence. But Jared’s sitting there nodding, eyes bright, as if Jensen were describing his glamorous, tumultuous Hollywood lifestyle of the past. 

“That sounds cool,” Jared says, like there’s more to tell. Like anything about it compares to running your own farm or designing and building your own baseball field by hand from the ground up.

“Not really,” Jensen mumbles, and shrugs. He takes a sip of his disgusting Diet Mountain Dew—stupid Jared and his _it’ll help you stay awake, Jensen!_ —hoping that’ll stave off any follow up. 

Jared seems to take the hint, though, because he casually asks about any good books Jensen’s read lately and for a good chunk of road after that they manage to talk about print books vs. mobile platforms and about true crime and alternate history and whether George R.R. Martin will actually finish _The Winds of Winter_ now that the HBO is airing the new season of _Game of Thrones_.

 

***

 

Somewhere around the point Pennsylvania turns into Ohio, Jensen must have dozed off, because he wakes with a jerk, disoriented, shouting, more like screaming. He’s flailing for the wheel, desperate to turn the car before it arrows off the road into disaster. 

“Hey, man! Stop! It’s okay!” Jared splays his big right palm in the middle of Jensen’s chest and presses him back into the passenger seat. 

Jensen clutches Jared’s hand and kind of folds over it, curling his head down toward his knees and trapping Jared’s hand against his heart. He hauls in three or four deep breaths, until his nerves settle. Finally, he can sit up again. The sky is starting to pink at the edges with dawn. 

Jared carefully moves his hand to grip Jensen’s shoulder. “Wow. That was some nightmare.”

“Yeah,” Jensen acknowledges dully. Funny, that wasn’t a particularly bad version.

He should apologize, explain. Of course, Jared doesn’t seem surprised at Jensen’s outburst. Hasn’t bothered to ask him to take a turn behind the wheel all night. Jared probably already realizes what a pitiful wreck Jensen is, maybe he figures he has to bear up under whatever fucked up burdens the Voice throws in his path. What kind of moron is Jensen to think he could waltz right out of his apartment and into the real world? Did he really think all his damage was just going to melt away like frost in the sunshine? 

He shrugs Jared’s hand away without further comment. He looks down at his fingers, rubbing the tips together. He can feel Jared’s eyes intent on him. He ignores it. They head down the highway in silence.

 

***

 

They pull into the city of Ecorse, its shabby suburban streets lined thick with tiny bungalow houses, all stacked so close there’s barely three feet of grass between them. Jensen navigates and they make their way to the local library, figuring that’s the likeliest place to start. They find a squat one-story brick building, fraying at the seams, the paint on the windowsills cracked and faded, but with a stouthearted row of impatiens lining the walkway to the door.

Inside appears to be empty, until a figure emerges from the office behind the wood-paneled circulation desk. She’s a stout middle-aged woman that casting directors would call “handsome,” her dark hair perfectly coiffed, glasses hanging from a beaded chain around her neck. The nametag pinned to her sweater says “Loretta.”

Jared greets her with a smile all set to charm. Which Jensen sure hopes works, because they’re both looking a little worse for wear, coming straight from the all-nighter on the road. 

“Good morning,” Jared says. “My friend and I are in town working on a history project.” It’s not exactly a lie. “We’re trying to find some information about an ex-ballplayer names Aldis Hodge. He used to live here in Ecorse?”

“Doc Hodge?” she responds. 

“Yes. Yes. Did you know him? Do you remember him?”

“Of course! He was a pillar of the community. Years and years, practically my whole life. Everyone loved him and mourned when he passed. June before last it was.” Then she turns and, from the top of a bluish filing cabinet behind the desk where a dozen or more pictures are displayed, she picks up a random frame and hands it carefully over to Jared. 

Jensen moves forward to look over his shoulder, and sees a shot of an elderly black man surrounded by children in front of one of the library shelves with an open book on his lap. He’s grinning, looking at the camera like he’s sharing a joke with the photographer. 

“Well,” Jensen murmurs in Jared’s ear. “We seem to have come to the right place.”

The librarian pulls together some old articles about Hodge, photocopies them on an ancient, wheezing Xerox machine, and hands them over. Then she gives them a list of other people in the neighborhood they could visit. 

The two of them spend the rest of the day going from diner to barbershop to church office. At Emagene’s Biscuits and Gravy they stop for lunch and draw a crowd of patrons, all eager to talk about Hodge. But none of the locals seems to either know or care about Moonlight Hodge’s brief baseball career; all they want to talk about is his work in the community. How he’d hand out free eyeglasses to poor families or give free physicals to the kids who wanted to play sports. How he was the only doctor in town who’d work with the homeless AIDS sufferers or drug addicts. How he didn’t drink or smoke. How he never missed an Ecorse High home baseball game. How much he was missed.

Evening finds them both sitting back in the van. Jensen feels deflated, like he’s spent the whole day with a pin-prick hole in his side and has at last run out of air. He’s probably talked to more strangers in a single day than he has in the last year. A few of them had recognized him, and pressed him about his movies. He’d gritted his teeth and smiled, and, fortunately, Jared had each time quickly steered the conversation back to Doc Hodge. 

And now Jared doesn’t look any better than Jensen feels, his eyes red-rimmed. “What are we supposed to do now?” he says. “All this, and we still don’t know what ‘Go the distance’ means.”

“You think we should give up?” The words feel wrong, mispronounced. But Jensen’s followed Jared’s lead this far, trusts him more than he trusts himself in this.

“No,” Jared replies slowly. “No. But, man, I’m done in at this point. What would you say to finding a motel or something and seeing if we have any better ideas in the morning?”

Jensen stiffens a little at the mention of a motel. The VW is a close, insulated space, yes, but it doesn’t feel _intimate_. Not that way. Not the way ‘getting a room’ would be. And even if Jared is oblivious to the connotation, Jensen isn’t. Isn’t immune to the growing pull he feels toward Jared. His awareness of the way Jared’s jeans cling to his thighs or the way he licks his lips when he’s listening to someone intently. 

“Okay,” he agrees anyway. Because once you start believing in phantom Voices and dead men playing baseball in Iowa, there’s no reason not to keep on with the crazy.

 

***

 

Jared tosses a duffle onto the queen bed closest to the door. Jensen’s got nothing but his wallet and keys.

In the bathroom, he brushes his teeth with his finger and a dab of Jared’s disgusting bubble-gum flavored toothpaste. He realizes he has no Ambien with him, but it occurs to him that he may be tired enough not to need it for the first time in a long, long time. His leg aches, and he limps heavily out to the main room, barely able to put any weight on it. He averts his eyes from where Jared is settling in. He thinks about slipping out of his jeans, but in the end he simply snaps out the light and lies down in the clothes he’s wearing.

After a minute, he hears Jared’s voice.

“What happened? With the accident? If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. Just— It’s okay if you do.“ 

“Didn’t you research me when you heard the Voice? Like we are with Moonlight Hodge?”

“No,” Jared replies, and gives a little laugh. “I just imagined your face and then immediately hopped in the van to start driving.”

Jensen hesitates, but then draws in a breath and starts talking. It’s not his favorite subject, to say the least. But in the dark, the words come easier. “It was one night when I was on the party circuit in L.A. between shoots. About eight years ago now. My passenger was just a kid, his name was Milo. I’d met him an hour before at my third party of the night. Didn’t even know his last name. All I wanted was to get him back to my place, didn’t give a shit about how much weed, coke, and booze I’d done that night. They pulled me out of the car wreck with a bloody nose and a fucked up knee. Milo? He didn’t make it.”

Jared doesn’t make a sound. Not a peep, so Jensen continues. “The handlers at my agency weren’t sure which was worse: that I’d killed someone, or the fact that the world might find out that I was gay. This was before the Ellen Pages and Matt Bomers of the world started speaking up, and I was told in no uncertain terms that a dead gay lover would end my career. So they cleaned up as much as they could, paid Milo’s family off, fixed things with the cops, suggested I lay low for a while. But it didn’t really work. Everyone knew. The role I’d been negotiating suddenly fell through, other directors stopped calling, rumors about what happened made their way through one or two turns of the gossip media news cycle. And finally everything did die down. I guess. But by then I was so disgusted with myself and what I’d become. Angry that no one seemed concerned about Milo, just my future box office potential. I was ashamed. Guilt-ridden. Whatever… I just decided to quit.”

Jensen cuts himself off. Doesn’t know what to expect. _Please,_ he thinks. _No platitudes. No ‘it’s not your fault.’ No ‘you need to forgive yourself.’_ He’s heard them all. They’ve all been lies.

Jared’s silent for a long time, just lies there. Jensen thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep. Jensen’s three-quarters of the way there himself. But finally, Jared’s response floats across the distance between their beds. It’s simple. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I can imagine how hard it is to describe an experience like that.” He’s quiet again for a second, then goes on, lower. “Also, I know how hard it is to come out to a stranger. Or to a friend.”

Jensen’s not stupid. He gets the message. And if Jensen were the man he once was, he’d get up and go climb into Jared’s bed, climb over him, on top of him, discover whether Jared is a stranger or a friend or something more.

And although just being on this trip is a sign that something has changed in him, Jensen’s not that reckless anymore. Or brave, depending on how you look at it. 

He doesn’t reply to Jared, he just closes his eyes and pulls back all the exposed parts of himself into the protective shell of sleep. 

 

***

 

Jensen wakes in darkness, his senses alert as if someone had called his name. He glances at Jared’s bed, but through the gloom, can only barely make out an unmoving mound of blankets. He fumbles for his phone and the clock says 2:37am. He looks over in Jared’s direction again and catches the glint of open eyes. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Jared replies. “I just—I don’t know. I might take a walk.”

“In the middle of the night?” But as soon as Jared says it, Jensen feels the pull, too. 

Jensen throws back his covers. Jared skims out of pajama pants and into jeans. Jensen turns away and grabs his ballcap and settles it on his head. Old habits die hard.

They walk out together. Jared locks the motel door behind them, patting his pocket to feel the key. The night air is heavy with smells that have nothing in common with New York, and it’s cooler than Jensen expected. By unspoken agreement, the two of them turn right and walk shoulder-to-shoulder up the sidewalk towards the center of town. Jared sets the pace, slow. Jensen reins in a foolish impulse, takes care not to knock Jared’s hand with his accidentally, in case the urge to hold it overcomes his good sense. 

They make their way down Jefferson Street, as far as the school, and a few more turns take them toward the old-fashioned brick building where Doc Hodge and his wife had lived in one apartment and rented out three others. Jensen looks at the silent silhouettes of the tall trees and short houses dark against the sky, the streets empty of cars, of any other figures beyond the two of them, and thinks again of the difference from Manhattan. 

Just as they approach the front door of the apartment building, a latch closes softly and a figure comes carefully down the stairs, onto the sidewalk. It turns towards them. The little hairs on the back of Jensen’s neck stand up. There’s no doubt in his mind that this is Hodge. It’s the picture of him at eighty-five in the obituary come to life. He’s stooped a little, but his body is still slim, shoulders still as broad as a younger man’s. He’s got on a black suit and tie, the crisp shirt gleaming under the streetlight. He’s balding, and what fringe is left is close-cropped and grey. 

“But—“ Jensen stops short. _But he’s dead. The man’s fucking dead._

Jared has no qualms, though, and strides forward. “Doc?” he says, as the figure draws near them. “Doc Hodge?”

Doc—or his ghost, or the joint hallucination Jensen’s sharing with Jared—stops and pins them both with a skeptical gaze. His glasses reflect the moon overhead. “Now what are you boys doing lurking around this time of night? I don’t happen to be carrying any money, so there’s no point in perpetrating a robbery.”

“No, sir,” Jared answers, Texas-drawl seeping out from under the veneer of his Midwesternness. Jensen keeps his own mouth shut. “We’d just like to talk to you a little bit about baseball. About back when you were Moonlight Hodge.”

“Moonlight,” he repeats slowly. “Huh. No one’s called me that for nigh on sixty years. Can you believe it? So, I guess it wasn’t an accident that you two were waiting on the street for me tonight?”

“Not exactly. I’m Jared Padalecki. This here’s my friend, Jensen. We were just out walking, hoping you might appear.” 

“’Appear?’” Doc repeats. “Now that’s a funny word to use.”

“You mind if we join you?”

Hodge nods and starts walking. He’s got an umbrella, and plants it, every few steps, as if to steady himself, but he hardly needs it. Jared falls in next to him and Jensen follows a few paces behind, hobbling more noticeably than the octogenarian. 

“Let’s go to my office,” Doc says. “We can talk there.”

They head to a dark storefront a few streets down. Earlier that day, Jared and Jensen had driven by to see it, empty and boarded up. Now the door’s got a frosted glass front with _Dr. Aldis Hodge_ stenciled on it and Jensen can see the shapes of furniture through the window. Doc fumbles with the keys in his pocket, then opens the door and lets them inside. Jensen shudders a little as he walks past the threshold. 

“I’ve told my story to baseball historians and sports columnists and such, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never told it at 3am, even as a young man.”

“Well, thanks for sharing with us tonight,” Jensen says, because, hell, he can’t let Jared be the only one who can say he chats with spirits. 

Hodge sits down with a grunt of effort and settles back in his chair. “I’d only been called up from my Negro League team a week before. First black player for the Tigers, right on the heels of Robinson in Brooklyn and Doby in Cleveland and maybe a handful of others, you know. It was all new and strange, to everyone. Anyway, it was the end of the eighth inning, and we had a big lead, seven or eight runs. I was sitting on the bench, gawking up at the packed stands like a rube. Didn’t actually know whether I’d ever play or not, or if I was just a symbol of sorts. But that day our manager, O’Neill, out of the blue just pointed a bony finger at me and said, ‘Right field.’ I jumped like I was sitting on a spring, grabbed my glove and hustled out, not sure what to expect.” Doc takes off his glasses, pulls a snowy-white handkerchief from his pocket, and starts to polish them. “Well, the crowd didn’t like seeing a black man in Mr. Briggs’ Stadium, not at all. Racial slurs and threats rained down on me as I patrolled that yard. From my home fans!” He shakes his head in sadness. “Out there all by myself, seemed like a mile back to the infield.”

“And did you ever get to make a play?” Jared asks. Jensen sure hopes Doc got the chance to show up the assholes that had heckled him.

“No. The ball never was hit out my way. A pop-up to the left side, a soft grounder to short, and a strikeout, and the inning was all over. I bet I wasn’t out there for more than five minutes, even if it felt like fifty.” Doc gives a quick laugh, without humor. “Anyway, O’Neill changed his mind, benched me, so in one inning the game was done and so was I. The Tigs didn’t bring on another black player for nine years. One of the last teams to integrate.”

“It seems like a tragedy, to make it so far and then only be there for five minutes.” Jared says.

Doc smiles sweetly. “If I’d only got to be a doctor for five minutes, now _that_ would have been a tragedy.” He ducks his head to peer over the tops of his glasses and looks them both over, then says, “So now you tell me, boys, what makes you so interested in that half-inning of mine sixty-some odd years ago?”

“Well,” Jared starts, glancing over at Jensen, who nods encouragement but has little to offer otherwise. “I guess, what we want to ask you is—“ he gulps and forges on, “—if you could go back, if you could have one wish, a baseball wish—“ 

“Are you in the wish-granting business?” Doc asks with a bigger grin. Then he leans forward on his elbow and rubs a thumb in the corner of his mouth pensively. “I never got to bat in the major leagues. I was pretty fair on the Detroit Stars as a green kid—hit .335 one year—and I wasn’t bad in practice with the Tigs. But I’d have liked to stare down that major league pitcher. I’d have liked to feel the tingle in my arms as I connected at the sweet spot, and run the bases to beat the throw to home with a slide that turned my uniform clay-red. That’s what I wish, my fine young visitors.”

“What if I told you that there’s a place where that could happen?” Jared says earnestly. “That we could take you there?” 

Jensen expects Doc to jump at the opportunity, that’s why they’re here after all. But instead, the old man shakes his head ‘no.’

“After I came back from Korea and got my medical degree, Beth and I settled here in Ecorse, because back then it took a special community to accept a mixed race couple. Still does, I guess. Anyway it’s been good to us, and so we never left. And I’m rooted here now. I’ll be here until I die.”

 

***

 

That night, after they return to their motel room, both of them filled to the brim with the inexplicable, Jensen dreams of the accident. 

But, unlike the thousands of times he’s dreamed it before, in this one he’s on a film set. As always, it’s pitch black, he’s driving, swerving, screaming, the tree trunk flies at the windshield. But right before impact, a director yells, “Cut!” Flood lights flash on, illuminating cameras, sound booms, catering tables. Jensen steps out of the immobile sports car as crewmembers scurry to redress the scene. Milo gets out from his side, gives Jensen a brief wave and heads off towards the cast trailers.

He wakes the next morning to a lemon-slice of sunlight splashing across his face, and the sight of Jared framed in the open motel room door, bearing coffee.

Jared bustles around busily as Jensen stumbles to the bathroom to take a piss. But when he comes out, Jared’s sitting on the edge of his bed. 

Jared looks up at Jensen expectantly. “So, what now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s it? Maybe we just needed to talk to him?” This time, Jensen doesn’t feel that immediate sense of wrongness at the thought of giving up. He just feels weary. And grimy. And, in the light of day, unable to account for what seemed to happen last night.

“Maybe,” Jared echoes. 

“I guess—“ Jensen ransacks the corners of his mind for a reason to stay. Any reason to prolong this implausible adventure. But he can’t come up with anything. Nothing aside from the fact he just wants to be wherever Jared is, and that’s what scares him more than anything. 

_Too close. I’ve already gotten too close._ “I guess I’ll fly home from here. If there’s nothing else left for us to do.” Jared draws in a quick breath at that, but Jensen talks over any reply he might make. “You can just drop me at Detroit Metro. It’s only a few miles down the road. Right along the highway on your way. I’m sure they have regular flights to JFK or LaGuardia.”

Jared searches Jensen’s face, but Jensen knows he won’t find anything there that Jensen doesn’t want him to see. 

“Okay,” Jared acquiesces at last. “Sure. Whatever you want.”

 

***

 

In the VW, it’s quiet. Jared hasn’t flipped on the radio. He’s not singing. 

_Perhaps he’s listening for the Voice,_ Jensen thinks. He stops checking his phone for directions to the airport for a second and closes his eyes to listen, too.

When he opens them, on the corner, before the turn onto the ramp for I-94, there stands a teenager. He’s got a bat slung over one shoulder with a cloth bag tied to it like a cartoon hobo. 

Those knowing little hairs on Jensen’s neck perk up again.

The kid sticks his thumb out. Without hesitating, Jared slows the van to a stop, and Jensen cranks the window open with the handle. 

“Hop in,” Jared yells across Jensen.

The back door slides open. The kid tosses his duffle in and flings himself in behind it. “Thanks,” he says, a bit breathless. “You’re the first car by. I didn’t expect a lift so soon.”

“Where are you headed?” Jared asks.

“Where are _you_ headed?” the boy counters amiably. 

“We’re going to Iowa,” Jensen says, before Jared can reply. 

He sees Jared’s head whip around and his eyes widen at Jensen’s ‘ _we_.’ 

“Cool. I’m looking for a place to play ball,” their passenger explains. “Baseball, you know? I’ve heard there’s Double and Triple A teams all throughout the Midwest that’ll let you just walk right in and try out. No need for scouts or anything.”

“It’s your lucky day, kid,” Jensen responds, his gaze still locked with Jared’s. “We’re going someplace kind of like that. Aren’t we?”

Jared nods tightly and turns his attention back to the road. His eyes are suspiciously shiny. There’s an inexplicable lump in Jensen’s throat, too.

He swallows it down. “This is Jared Padalecki. I’m Jensen Ackles.”

The kid doesn’t blink an eye at Jensen’s famous name. He just smiles and says, “Pleased to meet you. My name’s Aldis Hodge.”

 

***

 

From there, it’s almost eight hours to the Iowa state line and another hour after that to Jared’s farm. At some point Jensen wonders if he’ll ever see another landscape that doesn’t include corn. He’s a city-dweller, a foreigner in this land. He’s used to being able to see one block at a time, not hundreds of miles in every direction stretching outward to the very edge of the earth. The sky here is bigger, bluer. A herd of fluffy clouds graze right above the horizon.

At last, Jared turns the VW into a long driveway. To the right, there’s a barn. A grain silo lists tiredly next to it, both of them a weathered brick red. Up ahead, there’s a house sitting on a little rise. It’s wood-shingled and sprawling, two stout stories with a deep porch that rings the first floor on three sides. The clapboard siding is white and the roof is slate and it looks like something out of a postcard.

Then, as the van rolls past a break in the window-high crops, Jensen finally spies the ballfield. It’s huge. This is not some rinky-dink municipal Little League diamond; this is as expansive as anywhere the Dodgers or Royals play. The infield is orangish-red clay edged with baselines as white as fresh flour. The outfield’s close-trimmed grass stretches smoothly out and away like a cashmere carpet. It’s incongruously framed, not by walls, but by the tall hedges of corn. 

Yet everything here is vacant and still. No players. Nothing magical. Just…just an empty ballfield in the middle of nowhere. 

Jensen swallows against disappointment.

“So. This is it.” As Jared eases the van to a stop in the drive, a few puffs of white—oh, they’re actual hens—skitter out of the way. 

A woman emerges from the front door of the house, leading a toddler by the hand.

The child lets out a squeal and runs toward them. “Jerry!” she lisps and holds out her chubby arms. Jensen watches as Jared grabs her up and swings her around, feet flying toward the sky, before gathering her in.

“Hello, Jaybird,” Jared sings into the child’s silken hair, then shifts her to one hip to drag the woman into the hug as well.

And if Jensen’s hopes had stumbled at the sight of the deserted field, this sends them plunging into dark despair. Had he misinterpreted everything? Did Jared have a wife and kid and just never thought to mention it? Jensen wants to turn away, go check on Aldis, or go walk into the corn and never stop, but he can’t feel his legs or arms or anything. All he does is stare at the redhead with a starlet’s looks where she stands tucked under Jared’s arm.

“Jensen,” Jared says merrily, like nothing in the world is amiss, “this is my buddy, Danneel. She and this little lady,” he gives the girl a little boost, “look after the farm for me whenever I have to go away for a few days.” He glances down at the woman, who’s got a grin tugging at one corner of her mouth like she’s in on some clever secret. “Danni, this is Jensen Ackles.”

Jensen’s not sure what to expect, but Jared’s obvious emphasis on the term ‘buddy’ does have him breathing a bit easier. And it’s nice that Danneel doesn’t gush or fawn, but neither does she pretend she doesn’t recognize him. 

“Hey. I’m a big fan,” she says simply. She stretches out a hand, and when he takes it, she shakes it with a firm grip. 

Still, Jensen doesn’t know what to reply. He really does hate this kind of thing. He steps back and looks down at the packed dirt of the drive and then up at Jared for a little help.

Jared’s staring over his shoulder though, at something behind him. His eyes light up, and he calls out, “Hi there, Joe!”

 _Fucking Christ,_ Jensen sighs to himself. _Not another—_

But as he turns the thought cuts off. Suddenly there’s nothing in his head but the white buzz of wonderment. 

The stranger’s looks aren’t particularly remarkable. Medium height, medium build, a dark, low brow over a long nose and sharp features. But he’s wearing a baseball uniform, and it’s not a modern one, but something from years past, some bygone era. It’s baggy and greyish, pinstriped, with real horn buttons up the front and loose sleeves that drape around the wrist. It looks like some kind of costume. But the man wears it so comfortably, like a second skin, Jensen instantly can’t imagine him in anything else.

Jared sets the toddler down and saunters down to the field, toward where the ballplayer stands toeing one foul line. Jensen trails behind him, along with Danneel and Aldis.

The late-afternoon sun has settled itself at a low angle and their shadows stretch like long fingers reaching out toward the man. He looks solid. Real. As real as anyone Jensen’s ever met. 

“Heya, Jared,” the man says when they come to a halt a few yards away. “Welcome back.” Then he looks at Aldis, who’s standing there bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Hodge?” He inspects the kid up and down, “What the hell are you waiting for? Your contract arrived today, and we’ve all be wondering when you were going to report. You’re supposed to be on deck!” He jerks his chin toward the third baseline. “You came to play ball, didn’t you?”

“Yessir,” Aldis answers with a gulp.

“Then go warm up!”

“Yessir!” he says, brightly now. And with a jaunty wave at Jared and Jensen, Aldis trots around to the end of the fence and steps onto the grass. 

“Playing right field and batting seventh is Moonlight Hodge,” an announcer’s voice intones from speakers tethered up on the lightposts that tower over the corners of the field. Jensen spots Aldis reaching for one of the cream-colored bats propped against the fence next to the dugout, trying to look casual, but grinning like a loon. His clothing has transformed into a uniform to match the other players that have somehow materialized on the field between one blink and the next. 

Jensen stands there feeling like his feet have lost contact with the ground. A strong gust of wind could loft him up into the air like a kite. 

“Can you see them?” Jared asks from beside him, low and quiet. Reverent, as if in church. “Not everyone can.”

“Yeah.” Jensen sucks in a deep breath. “Yeah, I can see ‘em.” 

They’re mid-game. The wooden scoreboard in the outfield that was blank when Jensen first spotted it from the driveway now has five innings worth of flat panels hung on hooks. Two simple rows of white numbers showing runs scored for Visitor and Home, below that outs, balls, and strikes.

The men on the field wear a variety of uniforms—Giants and A’s, White Sox and Red, the Yankees, the Braves. Jensen spots one player in the outfield wearing an LA Dodgers cap and another—the guy on second—is in one from Brooklyn. 

Jensen does a double-take at that second baseman, stares harder. It can’t be. “Oh my god,” he mutters.

“What?” Jared asks.

“That’s Jackie Robinson.” 

“Damn right it is,” Jared says, kinda smugly. Jensen can hardly blame him. “You mean you didn’t really believe me?”

“I thought I did. I mean—Dr. Hodge was one thing. But this?” Jensen gestures weakly toward the action. Out on the mound, the pitcher winds up and rockets a fast ball past Aldis so hard he has to jerk back, stumbling out of the batter’s box. The players in the infield whistle and hoot. Jensen struggles to recall the faces and uniforms from his dad’s Topps card collection, painstakingly arranged in page upon page of plastic sleeves. Satchel Page. Lou Gehrig. Brooks Robinson. “My god, it’s like Cooperstown out there.”

“I know, right?” Jared says, a little less smug, a little more likewise amazed. 

“All the movies I’ve been in, the scripts I’ve read…” Jensen shakes his head. “…I’ve never encountered a plot as unbelievable as this. It’s incredible.”

“It’s more than that,” Jared says, and his gaze shifts from watching the game. Jensen can feel his eyes on him. “It’s perfect.”

 

***

 

Danneel takes J.J. and bundles her into a little grey Honda. They head back to their own home, leaving Jared and Jensen alone on the small rise of wooden bleachers that Jared’s built behind home plate. Jensen can’t climb beyond the first row, but it doesn’t matter; he’s got the best view he could possibly want.

The fading sun is a rich amber color over his left shoulder. And back behind the broad expanse of outfield, the sheaves of corn rustle and murmur like a stadium crowd bored by a pitching change.

The players run and hit and catch like graceful dancers, like diving birds of prey, like precision machines. But they clown around, too, more like schoolboys than grown men. The player at first nonchalantly slaps the baserunner’s hat off; the baserunner—it’s Joe fucking DiMaggio—pays him back by popping a pink bubble of gum in his face. Another inning starts and ends, and Jensen can’t decide if it feels more like the world’s greatest All-Star game or something spontaneous in a neighborhood sandlot. It doesn’t seem to matter that they come from different eras, different generations, or that they’ve been gathered here through some inexplicable magic. They simply play. As if that’s the only possible thing to do.

It ought to hurt. Jensen should be jealous and angry, that he can no longer run like this, move like this. That his body—while maybe not as gifted as the luminaries on the field—used to be so athletic, but now was broken. 

But that’s not what he feels at all. Instead, Jensen’s filled with this keen sense of joy. It’s almost unrecognizable, it’s been so long since he felt such a thing, but there it is. Every player’s effortless catch, every powerful swing of the bat, each one brings a new thrill, a new sense of respect. 

He watches Mickey Mantle stride up to the plate. Walter Johnson’s on the mound and he tucks the ball behind his back before the windup. 

“Better watch for the curve, Mick,” Johnson calls out. 

“Better watch for it back in your ear, Barney,” Mantle retorts. 

“Just try and hit me, knucklehead.”

They both grin and Jensen finds himself grinning too. 

At some point Jared slips away. He jogs up the lawn to the house, and comes back with his hands full. 

“Look what Danneel left us!” he crows, and slides back onto the bench next to Jensen. He unloads a plate of cold fried chicken and a tub of potato salad with two spoons sticking up out of it, a pile of napkins, and a six-pack of bottled beer, the glass already perspiring in the late-summer evening warmth.

They eat, and watch, and Jensen jumps when the floodlights automatically flicker on, illuminating the field.

The pop of the bat sounds like a firecracker exploding. Pinks and violets stain the sky like the juices of an over-ripe plum. Jensen leans back to rest his elbows on the bench seat behind him. He pulls in several deep breaths of the soil-rich air, and it somehow feels like these are the first breaths he’s ever taken on purpose.

 

***

 

After the last out is caught by Stan Musial in left field, the players gather together in groups of two and three, the at-bat team coming out of their dugout. They start meandering back toward the corn, laughing and roughhousing. Aldis turns to wave at them before joining some of the others as they step off of the outfield grass into the tall stalks and simply fade from sight.

Joe Jackson trots over to home plate and leans on the fence to talk to them, curling his fingers in the chain links.

“Thanks for coming back, Jared. We missed playing while you were gone.”

“Why didn’t you? You’re welcome to play any time you want, you know.”

“We know,” Joe says. “We just play when you’re here.” 

“And when he’s not? What do you do?” Jensen chimes in, curiosity eating him up as to how this—this magic all works.

Joe shrugs. “We sleep. We wait.” He glances over his shoulder at the light-drenched infield. “We dream.” 

“And you can’t leave the field any other way?” Jared asks softly, sympathetically.

Joe shakes his head. 

“What’s it like out there?” Jensen asks again. 

“Hard to say,” Joe says, and he gives Jensen a long, silent look, studying his face, like he’s weighing Jensen’s worth. It doesn’t intimidate Jensen, though, he’s plenty used to being judged.

“Can anyone go? Go out there with you?” Jensen presses.

Joe doesn’t answer. He might appear to be 27 or 28 years old, but his gaze holds more than a century’s worth of secrets. Silence falls among them, not a comfortable one, until the ballplayer straightens up and touches two fingers to the brim of his cap. “See you tomorrow?” he says to Jared.

“Yeah,” Jared replies. 

“Yeah,” Jensen echoes. 

And they watch as Joe turns and jogs out to join his comrades somewhere beyond sight.

 

***

 

Jensen turns his back to the empty field and starts to trudge up the hill toward Jared’s house. His knee throbs dully, sore from sitting for long hours, first on the road and then in the stands. There’s half a moon up in the sky now, and the whole world under it has faded to muted shadows. 

What brought those players here? What brought _him_ here? Jensen had thought he’d find answers once they reached Jared’s farm, but instead there’s a thousand more questions. He can’t explain what’s happening, but he seems to have accepted it anyway, embraced it, and that irks the logical, skeptical part of him. Where is the cynicism that he carefully cultivated these past few years? Where’s the caution?

The distance to the porch seems perversely farther for every labored step he takes. And with every step away from the ballfield, he feels the magic leeching away. 

But then Jared rolls up next to him and falls into stride, their shoulders almost touching and—and it’s a different kind of magic. 

Jensen’s attention is suddenly focused on the fact that they’re alone. That he’s staying the night. That they’ve got privacy and time and perhaps something between them to resolve. 

“There’s a guest room upstairs,” Jared says hospitably, juggling the empty dinner plates and bottles. “Sheets might not be fresh, but they’re clean.”

 _Guest room_ , Jensen thinks. _Right._ Never let it be said he can’t take a hint.

“Okay,” he replies shortly, and turns his concentration back to keeping his knee from buckling under him. The stairs up to the porch are just ahead. This part’s not going to be fun.

When they reach the steps, Jared purses his lips fretfully. At first it looks like he’s going to hover and fuss, even offer to help, goddamn it. But he doesn’t. He lets Jensen heave himself up one at a time with his death-grip on the rail. 

Instead Jared goes ahead and rattles along into the house, flipping on lights inside until the whole first floor is shining. The golden glow beckons Jensen on, warming him the closer he gets. 

He finally makes it up to the porch and follows Jared’s trail through the front door. 

As he opens it, the hinges creak, and the floorboards in the front foyer groan musically under his feet. The little hall is cluttered with what looks like a dozen pairs of worn shoes and muddy boots, a variety of coats hung on a drunken line of hooks. It opens up into a similarly jumbled living room. There’s eclectic, mismatched furniture everywhere: huge oak shelving units haphazardly crammed with books, a few over-stuffed ottomans, an ancient roll-top desk, and a scattering of low, odd-shaped tables. Bright artwork hangs on every wall. Stacks of papers and mail-order catalogs and pairs of workgloves, empty coffee cups and stray earbuds and loose change are strewn across every available surface. Bushy houseplants crouch in the corners. Plump pillows overflow on deep-cushioned chairs. The colors are all jewel-toned and earthy, ginger and ruby red and forest greens and navy. 

Jensen thinks about his own apartment, impeccably decorated by some unknown woman from some high-end firm, with a great deal of glass and chrome and unmistakably expensive leather. Jensen’s sleek Fendi sofa probably cost more than the GDP of a small island nation. By contrast, Jared’s monstrous couch looks like it was picked up at a yard sale, its nubbly-soft fabric matted and scored on the rounded arms, its cushions lumpy. 

All Jensen wants to do is curl up on it and sleep the night through.

He shambles over and sinks his fingers into the folds of a fleecy throw draped along the back of the couch. If he sits down, he knows he’s not getting back up.

Jared walks back in from what look like the direction of the kitchen. His brow’s furrowed with little lines as his gaze darts around the room. “Sorry,” he mumbles, running a hand through his hair, sending it flying. “I mean, I’m sorry the place is a mess. And that it’s so… so crazy. I haven’t had time to pay much attention to—“ he trails off, waving one hand vaguely at all his stuff. 

Jensen just can’t stand Jared’s look of miserable embarrassment. “Nah, I like it,” he says. 

And as the words come out of his mouth, he realizes they’re true. It’s not anything Jensen would ever think he’d be comfortable with, not his style. It’s too disordered and slapdash. It’s too _carefree_. 

And yet, as Jared’s expression turns hopeful, Jensen thinks how easy it would be to sit here every evening, socked feet up on the coffee table, or in one of the porch chairs with a generous tumbler of liquor, watching the stars come out.

He shakes off the mental image. It seems even less likely than ghosts turning a double play. 

Jared breaks into Jensen’s reverie. “So you want anything else to eat? Drink?” 

Jensen’s too tired to be hungry. And he can see Jared’s practically swaying with fatigue, too. No surprise considering he did all the driving today, all the fetching and running around tonight. 

“I think I’ll just head to bed,” Jensen says.

“It’s—“ Jared casts a quick glance over his shoulder and then looks back at Jensen, the worry flickering again across his transparent face. “—it’s up another flight of stairs, I’m afraid.” 

Oh, fuck the stairs. Jensen’s gotten used to Jared studiously ignoring his damned problem knee. He finds even this tangential acknowledgment raises his hackles. 

“Fine. That’s fine.” Jensen doesn’t mean for it to come out quite so snippy, but it does. Jesus, Jared’s surely regretting ever bringing him here. 

He puts his shoulders back and walks past Jared toward the archway, clenching his teeth and betraying as little limp as possible. A grunt slips out as he takes the first stair too quickly, but he manages the rest in silence. Jensen focuses on counting each step in his head— _four, five, six_ —as a way of blocking out the pain.

“Which room?” he grits out at the top of the stairs.

“The one on the right’s a guest room,” Jared replies. “So’s the one at the end of the hall. The one on the left’s mine.”

“Okay.” Jensen doesn’t look back, just heads for the right-hand door. Just a few more steps.

“Hey, wait a second!” Jared calls, and Jensen turns in time to see him duck out of the hall into his own room. Jensen’s tempted to ignore him and go on, but he musters up the last iota of patience he has and instead leans heavily against the floral print wallpaper. Honestly, has anyone actually decorated with wallpaper since some time around 1986?

In bare seconds, Jared emerges again with a handful of clothes. “I thought you might want something to sleep in,” he explains.

Jensen can see he’s holding out a t-shirt and a pair of lounge pants— _pajamas_ , his mind adds unhelpfully, _guess that makes this a regular slumber party_ —and Jensen’s suddenly struck by the thought of wearing Jared’s things, clothing that has clung to his skin, soaked up his scent. Jared probably means nothing by it; he’s just trying to be helpful. But to Jensen, it seems incredibly intimate.

Without a word, Jensen reaches out and takes the bundle. As he does, his fingertips brush against Jared’s. 

Jensen feels it like a sudden magnetic pull, the urge to step in, to press forward and herd Jared back against the wall. Jensen wants to slide his mouth along Jared’s, to taste, to sneak a hand under Jared’s shirt to feel the tremble of muscle and warm, bare skin.

Jared would let him. Jared’s waiting for it. Jensen can read it in every line of his posture. Since they met Jared’s been all blithe and puppy-friendly; but right now he’s tense, his breathing shallow, his gaze fixed and hot. Jensen figures Jared’s too much the Boy Scout to make the first move on a guest under his roof. But, oh, Jared’s ready. 

Jensen could probably have whatever he wants. It’s right there for the taking. And yet, he’s paralyzed. Feels like a chess piece that’s been moved to the wrong square.

Because it’s been so long since Jensen’s allowed himself to get this close. Eight long years of pushing people away, of maintaining that safe bubble of empty space around him. It’s habit. More than habit, something in his bones, now. He doesn’t hook up, he doesn’t have lovers. 

He doesn’t want this feeling of longing. He doesn’t trust it. 

He trusts Jared though. Jared with his visions and his magical cornfield and his exuberance and his bone-deep kindness. He trusts that Jared would go into this with his whole heart, and yet he’d let Jensen go the minute Jensen asked him to.

And there’s the hitch, Jensen realizes. Because he trusts Jared not to hurt him, but he has no doubt he’ll end up hurting Jared. Probably sooner than later. 

Hurting people is what Jensen does.

He backs away toward the guest room door, breaking the moment. “Thanks,” he mumbles, nodding down at the clothes.

“No problem,” Jared says, and if the words come out a little choked, Jensen ignores it. 

He makes it as far as his room before Jared pipes up once more. “Jensen? If you leave your dirty clothes for me in the hall, I can wash them in the morning when I get up early.” 

Jensen doesn’t turn his head. But he has to ask. “Early?” 

“It’s a working farm, y’know. Someone’s got to do some chores around here.” Jared says it teasingly, and Jensen can picture the soft smile on his face.

“Oh, okay. Thanks,” he says again. Jared really is too good to be true. Jensen’s doing the right thing here, keeping his distance. “Good night.”

Jared’s soft “good night” follows him in as he shuts the guest room door firmly behind.

 

***

 

Jensen looks around the room. It’s small and square and, fuck, he just needs a place to catch his breath and try to process all that’s happened to him in the last sixty-odd hours.

Rest beckons to him in the form of a simple queen-sized bed that takes up most of the space. It looks like some kind of earth-bound cloud with its piles of white pillows and a puffy down comforter. But the pull of the shower is even stronger. Jensen’s grubby and disgusting and he’s not lying down on clean sheets until he washes off all this travel grime.

He carries the borrowed sleepwear with him to the bathroom and sets it on top of the wooden cupboard sitting to one side of a pedestal sink. On the next shelf down there are a neatly-folded stack of towels and washcloths. And on the bottom shelf sit two buckets, cheap plastic pails that a child might use to make a sandcastle at the beach. One is pink, and it’s filled with women’s toiletries: body wash, floral-scented deodorant, a pink-handled razor, even some tampons. The other pail is blue, and Jensen grabs it and starts digging through the contents. There’s Old Spice and some generic grocery store shampoo and, oh thank Christ, a toothbrush and travel-sized toothpaste. It’s even mint-flavored, not that bubble-gum obscenity of Jared’s. 

Jensen doesn’t think he’s ever been happier in his life than he is at this very moment, brushing his filthy teeth. 

After that he finds a bottle of Advil in the bucket as well, and gratefully gulps down three at once, mentally ranking Jared’s house above any five-star hotel Jensen ever patronized.

He shucks off his clothes and groans as he leans down to the shower’s faucets to turn on the water. Jensen can’t remember the last time he bathed like this, in a basic tub with a curtain jangling along on rings and a little knob to pull up to make the water come out of the showerhead. All Jensen’s known for years has been his apartment’s walk-in, slate-tiled shower stall with its dual heads and steam nozzles. And before that, fancy hotel bathrooms with their translucent shower doors, the big mirrors on the opposite wall that used to let him admire his own perfect young body as he washed, or as he fucked some starry-eyed crewmember from his latest movie set.

He frowns. He’s not sure why the memory feels off. It feels more distasteful and depressing than the usual flashes from his glory days. But Jensen shoves it away. He knows better, trained himself long ago not to dwell on the past. 

He moves his pail of toiletries to the edge of the tub and clambers in, favoring the knee. He pulls the curtain closed behind him to create a little cocoon of warm mist and cheery yellow porcelain tile. 

Inside, Jensen drops his chin and lets hot water rush down his neck and back in a glorious waterfall. After a minute he reaches down for the bottle of body wash and squirts a big glob into his palm, rubbing it slowly over his chest and arms into a fragrant lather and then leaning back so it can rinse away. It wouldn’t be hard to fall asleep right here, just curl up in the bottom of the tub with the water pattering down on him. He huffs, amused at the thought of Jared having to come investigate why the heck the shower was running all night.

But suddenly the thought’s not amusing at all, because his mind’s eye feeds him a vivid image of Jared walking through the bathroom door. He’s clothed, and then he’s not. He’s flinging the shower curtain open and stepping in next to Jensen, the shower magically expanding to make room for both of them, but still close, private, arousing.

Jensen tells himself this is stupid, so fucking stupid, but he does it anyway. Reaches down and cups his balls, wraps his hand around his thickening cock. The coating of soap still on his hand smoothes the way as he strokes, picturing Jared lowering himself to his knees, the shower’s cascade drenching his long hair and pouring down over his lips.

It’s so easy for Jensen to envision pressing the head of his dick to those lips. They open so readily, Jared’s tongue coming out to cradle him as he slides in, shallow at first. It’s so warm, so wet. Jensen’s got his eyes closed now, hand moving steady and slow, squeezing on each upstroke like gentle suction. Streams of water caress his legs as if deliberately touching him, as if it’s Jared’s hands touching him. So Jensen imagines them sliding up to grip his ass, fingers digging in, tugging him closer, encouraging him to go deeper, all the way to bump against the soft flesh at the very back of Jared’s mouth.

Jensen gasps, pulling thick steam into his lungs. He leans forward, bracing one hand against the shower’s back wall and widening his stance, pumping his hips. His hand tightens on the end of his cock like it’s Jared’s narrow throat opening up for him, swallowing him down. He thrusts once more and his body jolts and shivers like a struck gong, a sharp cry scraping up the back of his throat as waves of pleasure ripple through him. His orgasm goes on and on, spurts of come pulsing out over his hand and down onto the floor of the tub to be washed away down the drain. 

He slumps forward, panting, resting his forehead on his arm against the tile. Christ almighty, it’s been a few days since he’s jerked off, sure, but he wasn’t expecting… whatever that was. 

Straightening up, he tries to focus on the white-noise hiss of the shower, letting it fill his head so he doesn’t have to think about how that particular fantasy had him coming like a geyser. He deliberately sets himself on autopilot as he finishes scrubbing down, washes his hair, lifts his face to the spray to let the water beat down on his cheeks and eyelids.

But when he shuts the water off and steps out of the tub, grabbing a towel and running it absently over his chest and arms, he sees the cupboard with the little pink bucket, sees the loaned pajamas, and he’s hit by how out of place he is right now. 

Because Jared’s the kind of guy who makes sure his guests feel comfortable and cared for, while Jensen’s the kind of guy who doesn’t have guests, period. Jared has a home where he makes room for other people: Jensen, Danneel and her kid, even the damn spirits haunting the field. Jensen has an apartment that he uses to hide from everyone else.

Sure, Jensen knows he’s got more baggage than O’Hare at Thanksgiving. He’d come to terms with that a long time ago. But being around Jared, even for just these couple of days, has reminded him by contrast how messed up he really is. It’s not the accident—not just the accident—it’s how somewhere along the way he’s lost the ability to be normal. Hell, he can hardly even _act_ normal anymore, and acting was the only thing he was ever good at.

He’s got to get himself under control. Needs to buckle down and just ride out this amusement park roller coaster of a trip he allowed himself to be dragged on.

When he’s finished drying off, he looks again at the pajamas. He’s used to sleeping nude, but he figures the least he can do is use something Jared went out of his way to provide. He slips on just the pants. Of course they’re too long in the legs, but they’re snug enough at the waist—Jensen drags his thoughts hastily away from how slim Jared’s hips must be—so he scoops up his dirty clothes and walks out of the bathroom. He eases open the bedroom door a crack and peers out. The hall is mercifully dark and silent. He drops his clothes in a pile just outside the door, remembering to fish the phone from the back pocket of his jeans before closing the door behind him. 

If this were the old days, he could never leave his things out in the open like that, unattended. They would’ve immediately have been stolen, probably sold on eBay or finding their way to some fan’s basement shrine. But here, there’s no worry. Just a small twinge of guilt that Jared’s going to do him one more unreciprocated favor. 

Shit. Jensen’s accustomed to _paying_ people to do things for him. It’s hard to get used to this obligation thing again. It’s like working atrophied muscles long-forgotten. It makes him sore and cranky. 

The bed is right there, but he finds himself walking to the window instead. He pushes the gauzy fabric of the curtain panel aside and turns the crank to open it. He looks out, down the hill. The stars have come out, thousands of them. A few clouds scuttle past the moon. The field and the corn and the lawn look like an old black and white photo. 

What is Jensen even doing here? Jared’s field is spilling out magic everywhere and it’s wasted on Jensen. There are so many other people out there who would appreciate it more. Deserve it more. Maybe understand what the hell is going on here. They’d get it. Jensen doesn’t. 

He punches the home button at the bottom of his phone, the artificial light from the screen splashing blue across his face, jarring. 

He should get online. Book a flight for tomorrow. What’s the nearest airport? Des Moines? 

He stares down at the phone until it starts to blur, his eyes so tired. But no matter how much he knows he should, he can’t seem to get his thumb to move. Can’t commit to leaving, can’t commit to stay. Eventually the screen goes black again. 

He’ll call the airline in the morning. 

Instead he falls into the bed, finally. He tucks one of the pillows under his bad knee to elevate it, wraps his arms around another. Thoughts are pinging around in his head like a toddler on too much sugar—Jared and baseball and legends and miracles—and there’s no way he’s falling asleep any time soon. But between one breath and the next, he’s out. 

 

***

 

Jensen’s first conscious thought is that it’s too bright in here. The second is that the bed’s facing the wrong direction. The third is that this is not his apartment bedroom. 

He raises his head off the pillow, squinting at the full sunlight streaming in through the windows. He can’t remember the last time he slept this late. However late it is. Could be noon already for all he knows. It feels possible, his body’s so glutted with sleep, it’s weighing him down into the mattress, making it hard to summon the energy to reach for his phone on the bedside table to actually check the time. 

But he does. The clock reads 9:30 a.m. Eleven hours of sleep, damn, that’s almost twice what he gets on a regular night, even with his Ambien or Rozerem or whatever drug his doctor last proscribed. And not a single nightmare that he can remember.

He shoves back the covers and rolls himself out, plucking at the sleep pants where they’ve twisted in awkward places. He gets down on the braided rug next to the bed and starts in on his morning stretching routine, then follows with three sets of crunches and pushups. His knee gives a few dull twinges, but it’s no worse than usual, pretty good considering the pain he was in last night. Mostly it’s just stiff… more like the Tin Man needing a hit off the oil can than the Scarecrow getting torn apart by flying monkeys. 

He finishes in Savasana pose, taking deep breathes of the Iowa breeze coming in the still-open window. Much of the gloom he’d felt last night seems to have dissipated, and he’s surprised to find himself eager to get downstairs, to find Jared, to see if the baseball ghosts will emerge again.

His clean clothes are in a neat pile outside his door, just as Jared promised. Jensen grabs them and throws them on, then makes his way down the stairs. 

“Jared?” he calls out. 

There’s no reply. The first floor is quiet, empty. Jensen’s not sure where to look, figures the kitchen’s as good a place to start as any.

He finds that it’s not a very big kitchen, yet Jensen recognizes the style from every HGTV makeover he’s ever watched. But this is an authentic farmhouse, not an up-scaled affectation targeted at suburban McMansioneers. So the deep rectangular sink is dinged and scarred and the butcher-block countertop on both sides gray with age. Copper-bottomed pans hang on hooks over a massive old range and oven. It’s not a sleek modern kit like Jensen’s own Miele, but a white enameled thing that looks straight out of the 1950s. There’s a skinny little island with a sink on one end and wooden stools lined up along one side. 

It’s clean enough but, much like the living room, it’s chock full of _stuff_. There’s a high, narrow shelf that runs the entire perimeter of the room, just a foot from the ceiling, lined with ranks of hand-painted plates and bowls and strangely-shaped bottles, no two the same. One counter is covered with piles of produce—tomatoes, cukes, unwashed bundles of carrots and leeks and greens—along with neatly-stacked egg cartons and a little woven basket full of blackberries. Jared’s got two different blenders, a toaster that’s been taken apart with its internal components set out in a neat array next to it, and a goldfish swimming lazily around a tiny round bowl.

At last Jensen spots the most important item in the entire room, sitting on the far counter. He heads toward it, stepping around a collection of empty glass milk bottles set up bowling-pin-style on the floor. 

Yes, it’s a coffee maker, a cheap Mr. Coffee drip-type the likes of which Jensen hasn’t actually seen in person since the turn of the century. He smothers a brief pang of longing for his espresso machine back at home, and wonders if he even recalls how to operate one of these things. 

It doesn’t matter, he’s almost willing to eat the coffee grounds raw at this point.

When he gets close enough, he sees there’s a little yellow post-it note stuck on the front. On it are written the words ‘Jensen, push here to start’ in tiny, precise block letters, and a little arrow pointing down toward a simple switch. 

Okay, so Jensen probably could’ve figured that out. But—he smiles before he can stop himself—the gesture is nice.

He flips the switch to start it brewing and glances around again, not sure what to do next. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to go wandering around looking for Jared, because who knows where he might be. So when Jensen’s glance lands back on the eggs and veggies on the counter, he decides he might as well make himself useful. 

Frittata is an obvious choice: easy, and he can substitute for whatever ingredients Jared might have on hand. He starts rooting around in the drawers and cupboards to make sure he has the basic items he needs. It doesn’t take long to lay out a cutting board and knife, mixing bowl, salt and pepper and a couple of other spices that are somewhat suspect in terms of age, but Jensen grabs them off of the shelf anyway. 

“Good boy,” he mutters out loud when he discovers an ancient, well-seasoned cast-iron pan in a low cabinet next to Jared’s range. He preheats the oven, then heads to the fridge to see what he can rustle up from out of there. 

It takes barely a minute to chop some onion and a little red potato he found in a bin. He goes to inspect the piles of fresh produce on the counter and realizes, wow, Jared must actually have a garden on the property and picked these this morning. 

Jensen’s a weekend Farmer’s Market kind of guy, and the ones in Manhattan get some delicious and extraordinary variety. But this is a whole other level of freshness. He’s tempted to start trying everything, simply to see what truly just-picked tastes like. He tears a leaf off of a bundle of greens and nibbles at it. Swiss chard, probably. That will work. Jensen grabs some tomatoes and a cucumber on the way back to his workstation, too. 

He wishes he had some bacon for the fat, but Jared’s got half-decent butter, so that will have to do. He starts sautéing potatoes and onion in the skillet while he whisks the eggs, begrudgingly adding skim milk when he’d rather have whole, or even some sour cream. Worse, it’s going to break his heart to use this mass-produced, pre-grated parmesan of Jared’s, but it’s all the cheese Jensen could find. 

The greens go in briefly, just enough to wilt and get rid of all that liquid, then the eggs to set, the cheese on top, and into the oven the whole things goes. 

Jensen sets the timer on his phone and then pours himself a well-earned mug of coffee. He’d half expected Jared to walk in while he was cooking, but there’s still no sign of him, so Jensen roughly dices the tomatoes and cucumber for a side salad and throws it into the fridge to chill. He cleans up the dirty bowl and utensils, and then takes his mug out onto the porch. 

From there he can see forever. The lawn and the ballfield are an emerald island in the oceans of brown-golden corn and wheat that run out miles in every direction. The sky above is as translucent as a chapel’s stained glass. Jensen still loves the cityscape more, but he’s starting to get used to this expansive view. Maybe. A little. 

Something catches his eye down to the left, a movement, and he sees the barn doors are open. Inside he spots Jared, poking around under the hood of some kind of tractor.

He checks his timer, figures he’s got just enough time to get down there and back. He heads down the porch stairs, carefully balancing his mug of coffee. 

Jared doesn’t seem to notice Jensen as he approaches the barn, so Jensen takes a minute just to look. Jared’s wearing a thin gray tank top that clings to the line of his spine. It shows off rock-hard shoulders flexing and bunching as Jared wrestles some obstinate piece of machinery into place. His jeans sit low on his hips and there’s a big smudge of oil down one thick biceps. The skin of his neck glistens with sweat and his long hair sticks against it in thick clumps of curls. 

It’s not fair.

“Hey,” Jensen says, to distract himself from staring.

Jared stands up too quickly and bangs his head on the hood with a hollow _thunk_. He rubs it gingerly with one dirty work glove as he flashes a grin. “Hey! Good morning! Did you sleep okay? 

“Fine, thanks,” Jensen allows. He could start gushing about how extraordinary it was, but it’s just a polite question. Jared’s not really looking for the details of Jensen’s sleep cycle, good or not. He waves a hand at the tractor. “Trouble?”

“Yeah,” Jared sighs, glancing down into the engine’s guts. “It’s a bum intake valve. I keep messing with it, hoping I don’t have to outright replace it, at least before harvest.” He squints out at the corn, wiping the back of his arm across his forehead. He sighs again and adds, mostly to himself, “Not sure it’s gonna matter.”

Jensen doesn’t like the way Jared’s brow furrows up. “Why’s that?”

Jared’s gaze swings back to him. “Oh, it’s nothing.” He smiles again, sunshine chasing away clouds. 

Jared’s so damn easy to read, though, and Jensen can see the smile’s forced. He can tell there’s way more to this story than Jared’s ‘nothing’ lets on. There’s a minute of awkward silence while Jensen debates whether to press for more explanation. At last he decides Jared must have good reasons for dodging, so he casts around for a different topic. 

“Any chance we’ll see a game today?” It feels weird to say it out loud, so casually. Magic in your front yard? Sure whatever.

“Oh, they’re just warming up now,” Jared replies, nodding over Jensen’s shoulder. 

Jensen whips around. Five seconds ago the field had been empty, but shit if there aren’t now a dozen players scattered across the green, some side-arming balls back and forth, others jogging around the bases, or leaning on their bats and chatting. Jensen spots Aldis standing on third, listening intently to something Ted Williams is telling him. No, really, that’s Ted Williams.

Jensen finds himself unconsciously taking three or four steps downhill toward them. 

“So, it’s cool if you want to go down there,” he hears Jared say, “but they aren’t going to start up for awhile. Pretty sure I heard someone mention a double-header today. I might go grab a shower. Maybe try to find something to eat.”

Jensen shakes himself, as if coming out of a trance. There’s food in the oven. He’d completely forgotten about it. 

“I was hoping you were hungry,” he tells Jared. “I made something. Not sure how it’ll turn out, but it’s something hot and likely edible. Should be about ready.”

“Yeah?” Jared replies, a new smile lighting up his face, a real one this time. Just looking at it makes Jensen’s unruly heart kick in his chest. “I’m starving actually.” 

“Me, too,” Jensen says. And he realizes it’s true. He’s never been much of a breakfast person, but everything seems to be an exception lately, since the moment he met Jared. He turns and starts stumping his way back toward the house. “Hurry up,” he calls to Jared over his shoulder. “We don’t want to miss the first pitch.”

 

***

The frittata comes out of the oven at the perfect moment, just barely set. Jared’s finishing washing his hands in the sink when Jensen turns and presents the dish to him with a proud smirk. Jared’s eyes widen at the sight of it as if he hasn’t eaten in weeks and he scrambles for a knife. He cuts himself an enormous piece that’s practically a third of the pan. 

It’s very gratifying. 

Jensen had gone through a period a few years ago where he’d gotten addicted to cooking shows—Alton, Ina, Mario, Jamie. He’d watch for hours at a time, back-to-back episodes. Eventually, he decided to try making all the recipes himself, even the most complicated. It’s not like he’d had anything better to do. He’d ordered himself a bunch of high-end equipment online and then started churning out dish after elaborate dish. Of course, there was no one around to eat them, so he’d usually just take the food down to the building’s front desk and ask Sheppard to share it among the staff. After awhile, it had gotten old, spending all that time cooking, and for what? So he quit.

Jensen realizes right then, standing in Jared’s tiny kitchen, that he’d never actually cooked _for_ someone before.

So watching Jared take a bite, seeing him close his eyes and moan with approval, it made every minute he’d spent teaching himself proportions and timing and ingredients seem worth it. 

If Jensen stuck around, he could actually put some forethought into a meal. He wonders what kind of grocery they have nearby, what it would stock. If Jared thinks _this_ is good, imagine what he’d think of Jensen’s salmon en croûte or some short ribs. 

Not that Jensen’s going be sticking around. 

He shoves those thoughts aside and gets Jared to break long enough to spoon big heaps of salad onto their plates. He pours himself another cup of coffee—Jared passes, swearing he’d already drunk nearly a whole pot earlier—and they take their plates out to the porch. 

They settle carefully into a pair of matching painted rocking chairs. Jared hooks his foot around a little rattan table and draws it closer, in between them. Jensen sets his coffee down on it and balances his plate on his good knee.

They eat, watching the players take batting practice and run drills. They chat about the pitching line-up, speculate on how superstars like these decide who plays which position. Jensen can tell Jared’s excited to have someone to talk about it all with, prattling along a mile a minute. That’s okay. Jensen can talk baseball with the best of them.

Jared’s a quick eater, too, practically inhaling his food. He’s done before Jensen’s even half through. 

“I’m gonna go grab a shower, if that’s okay,” he says, standing. “I can just meet you down at the field, if you finish before I’m back and you want to go sit in the stands.” 

“Sounds good,” Jensen says. “But I’ll probably wait here for you. This spot is pretty comfy.”

“Yeah, that’s cool. Oh, and thanks for the delicious breakfast. It was really amazing,” Jared adds, showing Jensen his empty plate as proof. 

Jensen shrugs awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do with the praise, not used to caring what people think anymore. In the old days, he used to live for compliments. Like fall leaves, he’d gather them into a big pile to jump in and wallow. Now, just this simple comment from Jared has him off-balance. He wants to stash it away for safekeeping, pressed between the pages of a book. 

“You’re welcome,” he manages.

“I swear I’m having a hard time stopping myself from going back in there and eating all the rest straight out of the pan. Where’d you learn to cook like that?”

“Um,” Jensen rubs the back of his neck with one hand, a habit he thought he’d broken a long time ago. “It’s nothing special. Just something I played around with awhile back. Cooking, that is. And some baking.”

“You know,” Jared says, cocking his head to the side, “you keep surprising me. I guess I assumed movie stars were more… I don’t know. Bigheaded. Egotistical. But you? You’ve got this incredible hidden talent and all you do is play it down. You get up in the morning and the first thing you do is whip up something to eat, just for me.” He’s grinning now, dimples on high-beam. “You’re a pretty awesome houseguest, Jensen Ackles.” 

“Thanks,” Jensen says. His voice sounds like a stranger’s in his ears. “You’re a pretty great host, too.” 

Jensen kicks himself for not saying something earlier, first thing. Because Jared _is_ a great host—better than great—and now it sounds like Jensen’s only being polite by saying it in response.

He rushes to add something else. “Guess that makes us a perfect team,” he blurts out. 

Oh Christ, he did not just say that. Jensen knows he’s lost his touch when it comes to social interaction—hasn’t bothered, doesn’t care—but with Jared it’s somehow started to matter again, and this is beyond inept. Didn’t he decide just last night that it would be stupid to encourage anything between them? That Jared deserves better? God forbid he interprets this as Jensen’s lame attempt at flirting.

Jared does shoot him a funny look. Jensen firmly bites back the temptation to keep talking, to explain, to misdirect. 

Instead he stands as well, and walks over to the porch rail with his back to Jared. “Maybe I’ll head on down to the field after all,” he says out into the open air. 

“Okay.” There’s a minute’s hesitation, but when Jensen simply holds himself still and silent, Jared follows up with, “I’ll see you in a few.”

He hears Jared gather up the plates and silverware and his footsteps fade away into the house.

Jensen pulls his phone from his pocket. It’s time to book that flight. 

But that little box pops up on the screen with the alert that he’s down to 10% battery. He realizes he didn’t charge the phone overnight like he always would at home. Dammit. 

There’s probably a dozen chargers lurking among all Jared’s stuff in the living room, but Jensen’s reluctant to venture back into the house—even just the first floor—while Jared’s showering. Jensen’s battling back enough X-rated mental images of that event as it is. So he tucks the dying phone back in his pocket again.

Out in the distance, Jensen spies two new players emerge from the corn to join the others at play in the outfield. Like phantoms, they seem to appear out of thin air a few feet back amongst the stalks. One second there was nothing, the next they’re jogging across right field, shoulder to shoulder. 

It’s uncanny. Impossible. It’s why he’s here.

All Jensen’s angst about things between Jared and him fades away. His thoughts of leaving the farm scatter. All he can think about is what’s out in the field. It’s time to go find out for himself. 

 

***

 

The walk down the lawn isn’t bad. Jensen’s knee’s so-so, but of course it’s early yet. He skirts the playing field, his eyes glued to this big, burly guy in baggy pants on the mound, throwing deadly split-fingered fastballs one after the other into the catcher’s mitt like they’re nothing. Jensen racks his brain to guess who it might be. He feels like he should know. He’ll have to ask Jared later. 

His skin starts to prickle as he approaches the nearest edge of the crop. He hesitates. Maybe it’s not such a bright idea to go charging in there with no idea what he’ll find. What if he gets trapped in some kind of no-man’s land? In a purgatory full of bygone celebrities waiting around, idle and miserable, longing for the chance to play just one more time?

On the other hand, Jensen’s pretty familiar with that life already. 

He steps in, pushing a path through the dense rows of plants. The corn is just above head-height this late in the season, but the tops thin out enough that he can keep sight of Jared’s house up on the rise, even as he makes his way deeper in. Leaves caress his face and arms, while the cornhusks topped with their tufts of silk thump against him less gently. The green scent is as thick as if he’s dived headfirst into a lawnmower bag of fresh grass clippings. Almost enough to make Jensen’s eyes water. The uneven footing where the furrows have been plowed kind of sucks for his balance, but he presses on. 

He comes to about where he thinks those last two players appeared and stops. He can hear indistinct sounds from the ballfield, but barely. Mostly it’s quiet, not even a mid-morning breeze to make the corn stir. 

He turns in a slow circle, but there’s nothing to see. Nothing unusual or supernatural. No glowing portal to another dimension. No ghosts. 

He sighs, rips the tip off of a nearby leaf and shreds it between his fingers in frustration. 

Might as well try to get back to the stands before they start the game.  
But before he can turn to limp his way back out again, the Voice murmurs from right behind him. 

**“Believe in it.”**

Its tone is that of a golden gong inside a stone temple, or a horn sounding the path to safety through dense fog. Jensen spins around so fast he almost falls, but there’s nothing to see. He could have imagined it, but for the racing of his heart, the echo of it in his ears. 

“What are you?” he yells into the emptiness. 

There’s no reply.

Fuck. _Fuck!_ Guess it turns out he wasn’t actually expecting to find anything out here. And now that he has, he’s freaking out. 

The first time he heard the Voice, back in New York, he’d had Jared with him, and a stadium full of thousands of fans. Now he’s alone and surrounded only by the corn. The corn that seems denser all of a sudden. As if it’s pressing in on him. Ready to smother him, to drive him down into the earth, bury him beneath the hidden web of roots. 

**“Believe in it,”** the Voice urges again. 

Then, abruptly, it’s like the seal of a jar is broken. A vacuum pops and air rushes in. He hears the distant caw of a bird and then someone calling his name. 

“Jensen?” 

Jared appears, pushing his way through the stalks, striding toward him. Jensen stumbles forward the few yards that separate them, just barely holding back from clutching at Jared with both hands for support.

“Hey, man, are you alright?” Jared asks with concern. As usual, he’s less restrained than Jensen, and reaches out to grip Jensen’s arm. 

“I heard it again.” Just having Jared here settles him, shores him up. His heart rate eases off the gas, starts to coast. The corn sways around them, tranquil and unremarkable. 

“What? Here? Just now?” Jared’s gaze darts around eagerly. “What did it say?”

“’Believe in it,’” Jensen repeats. It sounds so much flatter and less impressive when he says it. 

“In what?” Jared’s still peering around like he’s going to discover the Voice hiding behind one of the taller stalks. 

“I don’t know,” Jensen complains, throwing up his hands. He came out here searching for answers, and all he gets is more questions. Believe in what? Why?

“We do believe!” Jared calls out to the skies. “I built the field! Jensen came to Iowa! We’re doing everything you told us to!” He frowns, glancing at Jensen and then back into the depths of the crop. “What more do you want? Where does this end?” he shouts even louder.

Together they hold their breaths, waiting to see if there’s any response. 

But whatever was here is gone now, and nothing remains except the two of them. 

Jared glances at him. Jensen looks back. He shrugs. “What now?” 

Jared drags a frustrated hand through his hair. “Baseball, I guess.”

 

***

 

They shove their way back through the crop and step out onto the grass next to the outfield foul line. Jensen almost feels like turning right around and plowing back into the corn, camping there until he gets a response. It nags at him, this new mystery, piled up on top of all the rest. Jared had mentioned it took a while for him to work out the answers to the Voice’s earlier commands. But Jensen’s not feeling very patient. 

A quick glance at the ballplayers shows that warm-ups are over. The defense is manning their stations in the infield. Players from the other team are goofing around in their dugout as the first batter takes swipes with his bat in the on-deck circle.

Jared takes one look at the imminent start and breaks into a jog. Jensen tries to follow, but there’s a searing jolt of _hey-did-you-forget-about-me-bitch?_ that bursts up his leg. He curses under his breath and forces himself to slow down to a shuffle. 

Jared glances back over his shoulder and Jensen sees him frown. He starts to turn back around. 

_Dammit,_ Jared already had to come fetch him out of the field like a little lost sheep, now he’s stuck herding Jensen’s pathetic ass all the way in.

“Go on,” he calls, waving toward the bleachers. “I’ll be there in a minute.” 

But Jared doesn’t listen. Fucking naturally. He trots back and falls into step next to Jensen. 

“I said you should go on,” Jensen grumbles.

“I’m good,” Jared says. “They’re probably doing a double-header, remember? We’ll have plenty of ball all day.” 

Jensen tries to cling to his justifiable annoyance and self-pity, but it’s hard when Aldis calls to them from center field. 

“Hey guys!” the kid shouts joyfully, hopping from foot to foot in eagerness for the first pitch.

There’s a mocking chorus of ‘hey honey!’ and ‘yoo-hoo!’ and other teasing catcalls from his teammates. Aldis ducks his head in embarrassment, fiddling unnecessarily with the brim of his cap, but Jensen can see he’s still grinning. 

Maybe that’s enough, he tells himself. Maybe getting Doc Hodge another chance is what this was all about. 

Then the word ‘believe’ prickles in the corner of Jensen’s mind, and he knows there must be more they haven’t discovered yet.

It’s a relief to make it to the bleachers, and Jensen allows himself plop down with an undignified _oof_. Jared apparently brought some supplies down with him, because he rummages around in a little cooler and sets a bottle of water on the bench next to Jensen. 

“Take some of this, too,” he says, tossing Jensen a different bottle. 

It’s sunscreen. SPF 45. Jensen glances up at the yellow disk of mid-morning sun and then back at Jared, who’s carefully painting a streak down the slope of his nose with one finger. He’s tan from his work in the sun, but still fair enough to see the pink that washes across the apples of his cheeks when he catches Jensen staring. 

“Thanks,” Jensen says, swiftly looking down to concentrate on squirting a bit of lotion onto his palm and swiping it over his face, the tips of his ears, back of his neck.

Something seems weird about touching his own skin, slicking it up, while Jared does the same sitting right next to him. People do this all the time. There’s no reason for it to be weird. Jensen’s the weird one. Why can’t he recall how to be less weird?

But Jared doesn’t say anything else, and when a shout goes up from the bench as a batter rips a line-drive past the shortstop and into left, they both cheer along. Pretty soon they’re both settled back to watch the rest of the inning. 

Every play seems like a mini-masterpiece. Each pitch sings through the air like pure melody from the mound, each batter’s swing as strict and as inspired as the wave of a conductor’s baton.

At the quick crack of contact, Jensen sees Aldis drift a few steps to his left, raise his hand to signal that he’s got it. He camps underneath the ball for a second or two, catches it in the cradle of his glove, then rifles it back to the infield. 

“God, that was a great feeling,” Jensen mutters under his breath. 

“What was?” Jared asks offhandedly. 

“My hand inside a perfectly broken glove. The way the ball would smack into my palm when I’d make the play, make it sting. The ache in my shoulder after a long throw.”

“What do you mean?” Jared’s turned to face him now. 

Shit. Guess it’s time to confess. “I gave that interview,” Jensen says, slightly abashed.

“What interview?”

“The one you quoted to me back in New York, in my apartment. The one that described how I played ball in high school. Had hopes of college or even the pros before my knee was injured… the first time.”

“You lied to me!” Jared’s look of righteous outrage is classic.

“You were kidnapping me at the time, you asshole!” 

Jared huffs, but with no defense to that, he simply slumps back against the bench and crosses his arms over his chest. 

“I probably should’ve told you sooner,” Jensen offers.

“Probably,” Jared replies shortly. 

“It doesn’t really matter,” Jensen wheedles, finding he doesn’t really like Jared mad at him, not even just a tiny bit. “I’m here, aren’t I? The Voice it is talking to us again, isn’t it?”

“Not that we know what it means,” Jared complains, but the corner of his mouth twitches upward. 

“You’ll figure out this time, just like all the others.”

“It said believe? ’Believe in it?’”

“That’s right,” Jensen says, pausing a moment in hopes inspiration will strike. Two seconds…three… Nothing. He sighs. “I’m really not a fan of riddles.”

 

***

 

The day flies by. It’s so easy, just sitting beside Jared and enjoying the play, the sunshine, the breeze against his face. Jensen doesn’t even realize it’s mid-afternoon, until Danneel shows back up. She pulls a big catering tray full of sandwiches from the backseat of her car. 

“So I ran into Chad up in town,” she explains sheepishly to Jared. “And we got to talking about things, what I’m up to, how _you’re_ doing, and—well—I ended up inviting him and Gen and Osric and a couple other people out for a bit to check out the game.”

“Oh crap. Danneel —“ Jared starts. 

“But I brought plenty of food!” she counters, gesturing with the tray and almost dropping it. 

“Whoa,” Jared says steadying her with one hand, the sandwiches with the other. 

He glances over at Jensen with a concerned look on his face. 

Jensen shrugs, shaking his head and brushing a hand to the side to indicate it’s no big deal. Yeah, he doesn’t like people, but that’s no reason Jared has to cut off all his buddies. Worse comes to worst, he’ll go hole up in the house. 

Jared stares a bit longer, like he could read Jensen’s true feelings if he looks hard enough. At last he turns back to Danneel, “Fine. You take these up. I’ll let J.J. out of her carseat.” 

“You’re the best,” Danneel croons and turns on her heel to head to the house.

Jared gets the kid out of the car and brings her back over to the bleachers. She squats down and putters around in the dirt while he and Jared sit back down. Jensen tries to pay attention to the play on the field, but he keeps getting distracted, watching to make sure the little girl doesn’t stick something in her mouth or fall and crack her head open on a rock or something. The whole area suddenly seems full of dangers. 

He glances at Jared, who seems to be engrossed in the game again. He looks back over his shoulder at the house, but there’s no sign of Danneel. When he turns around again, the toddler is standing right beside him, looking up at him with big eyes. She holds up her arms. 

“What?” Jensen asks warily.

J.J. doesn’t say anything, just keeps holding her arms out. Waiting to be picked up. 

When he looks again at Jared, the jerk is sitting there smirking at him. 

“You think this is funny?” he asks. Jensen reaches out and grabs the kid under the armpits and lifts her onto his good knee. She’s as light as a doll. But a lot more squirmy. He just hopes she doesn’t pee on his leg. 

“They’re like cats, you know,” Jared says, barely keeping rein on the laughter in his voice. “They always find the person who least likes them and try to make friends.” 

The kid scootches around until she’s tucked up right against him, leans her head against his chest and puts her thumb in her mouth. Jesus, please don’t let her take a nap or something. He’ll be trapped for hours. 

He holds himself stiffly upright. “This is your fault, you know,” he hisses at Jared.

“How’s that?” Jared drawls.

“I don’t know, it just is.” Jensen grimaces. “There’s a showbiz saying that goes: ‘Never work with children or animals.’” 

“Well, lucky for you, you’re not working, you’re just enjoying a beautiful afternoon at the ballpark,” Jared says. 

If Jensen had a free hand, he’d slug him.

Fortunately, it’s only a few minutes later that Danneel comes down and immediately scoops J.J. out of his lap. 

“Oh, sorry,” she says, swinging the kid around recklessly as she climbs up to the top bench. “She’s usually kind of shy around strangers.”

Jensen throws another withering look in Jared’s direction, as if he’d coached the kid in advance to pick on Jensen. Jared finally outright laughs. 

But then his expression turns deadly serious as he looks to the left where a Mercedes is easing up the drive, a small cloud of dust kicked up behind it. It pulls up and parks next to Danneel’s Civic. 

These don’t seem to be the friends Jared’s expecting. Not when a woman in a fuschia-colored business suit and heels climbs out from behind the wheel. Two other men in suits get out and the trio walks toward them, utterly out of place. 

As soon as they get close enough, the woman says, with no preamble, “The bank is ready to sell the note, Jared.”

“Hello to you, too, Meg,” Jared replies, still uncharacteristically stone-faced. 

She ignores him and goes on, “We’re going to option your mortgage. So unless you bring it up to date and keep it up to date, we’ll have the legal right to foreclose.” If she had a mustache, Jensen thinks she’d be twirling it. 

Jared ignores that, too, and turns to Jensen. “This is my sister, Megan.” 

Jensen notices Jared doesn’t introduce him in return, and he isn’t sure what the hell to make of all this. 

He glances up at Danneel, but she’s just sitting still with her arms wrapped tight around J.J., tense and silent. The two men accompanying Megan don’t look tense, just embarrassed and uncomfortable. 

“Jay, this stupid baseball field is going to bankrupt you,” Megan says sharply. “Everybody knows it. All I’m saying is if you wait until you default on your loan, you lose everything. Sell now, my partners will give you more than a fair price, and you walk away with plenty of money to comfortably start again someplace else.”

Seriously, Jensen thinks, what the _hell_.

“Thanks, Meg, but no,” Jared’s saying. 

“What are you even holding onto this place for, anyway? You never even liked Iowa. Is it some misguided devotion to Grandpa’s memory? He wouldn’t want you to be trapped here.”

“I’m not trapped. No one’s trapped.” Jared glances at Jensen briefly, then focuses back on his sister.

“And yet you left town to go fetch a little boy-toy,” she sneers, tossing her head in Jensen’s direction. “Rather than staying here to take care of your crops.”

Jensen’s eyebrows shoot up and he mouths _boy-toy?_ at Jared, trying to lighten the mood.

Jared doesn’t smile back. This is definitely not good.

“You can insult me,” Jared says, “but don’t insult my friends, Meg. Don’t do that.” 

“Listen,” Megan softens her tone, changing tack. “I’m offering you more than it’s worth because you’re my brother.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to make a bad deal like that. I have to look out for you, because you’re my sister.”

They glare at each other, wearing matching mulish expressions. The silence isn’t broken until two pickup trucks come roaring up the drive, the guy in the driver’s seat of the lead truck leaning out his window to shout, “Play ball!” 

Megan takes a quick look at the newcomers and then tells Jared, “Figure out what you’re going to do, before it’s too late. I’m serious. Next time I come, I’m bringing papers.”

She makes as dignified an exit as she can given the heels of her pumps sink into the soft soil of the lawn, making her wobble like a calf. Her two silent goons—well, they would be goons if they didn’t look so much like nerdy accountants straight out of central casting—follow her back to the Mercedes. 

They pull away just as Danneel’s rowdy guests pile out of their pickups, calling hellos to Jared and peering curiously at the ball field behind them. 

Before Jared can step away from the bleachers to greet them, Jensen puts a hand on his arm. “Jared? What was all that? With your sister?”

“Can we talk about it later?” Jared asks, a deep furrow carved between his brows. 

“Jay!” someone calls, but Jared just looks at Jensen, his eyes pleading for a reprieve. 

Jensen nods and drops his hand. He figures it can wait. 

But it doesn’t sound like it can wait for long. 

 

***

 

Jensen ducks around the gathering and heads for Jared’s VW. He rummages around the back of the van to find his ballcap and snags a pair of sunglasses off the visor. Just that little bit of armor helps him feel better about facing the group of strangers. 

There are seven of them, and none of them are quite as chill as Danneel was about meeting the famous movie star, Jensen Ackles. So once Jared’s done introducing him around and they’ve all have a chance to gush over his ex-career and ex-fame, Jensen retreats to the porch. As predicted. 

Jared’s friends stay the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Jared comes up to check on Jensen a couple of times, brings him a turkey sandwich, later a beer, encourages him to come down to the stands. But Jensen insists he’s good and sends Jared back to them each time. 

From what Jensen can tell, all but one of them can see the game, and the lone skeptic complains loudly about how this is some kind of elaborate prank they’re playing on him. 

He tries not to be jealous that other people are privy to the magic of the field. It didn’t bother him when it was just Danneel and J.J., but somehow these others, this crowd of outsiders, feel like interlopers. He tells himself that it takes nothing away from the field to share it, in fact, it makes things better, spreads more joy. He tells himself it’s good that Jared will have more true-believers to support him when Jensen heads back to New York.

And when the players finally call it a night and head out into the corn, Jensen escapes into the house. It’s probably not polite to skip saying goodbye. Hopefully Jared won’t mind.

 

***

 

Jensen’s not hiding, he’s just taking a break in his room. He showers. He finds a stack of books underneath his nightstand and reads. He waits for Jared to come check on him, but there’s no knock at the door.

Finally, Jensen’s curiosity gets the better of his introversion. 

He peeks out into the hall and looks across to Jared’s door. It’s cracked slightly with the light on. 

He hesitates, then quickly pads over, knocking softly. He hears Jared reply, “Come in?”

Jensen pushes the door open and steps in. 

Golden light from the lamp on the side table burnishes every surface of the room, including Jared. He’s bare-chested in nothing but a pair of plaid lounge pants that match the ones he lent to Jensen. He’s sitting on the huge California King, propped up against the headboard, a stack of bills and papers in his lap.

Jensen can’t help it. He stops stock-still and stares. Jared’s torso is like a work of art, a smooth expanse of skin that spans from shoulder to shoulder, his muscled pecs dusted with dark hair, his narrow hips, the fine silky shadow that runs from the hollow of his navel to disappear into the waistband of the pajamas.

Jared stares back, and his hand comes up, almost unconsciously, crossing his chest as if to cover it like a modest maiden. Then he quickly looks down, busying himself with shuffling and stacking the papers. “Everything okay, Jensen? I—um—I ’m sorry about that whole crew barging in on us and staying so late and—”

“No, it’s cool. I hope it’s all right that I didn’t stick around. You probably figured out that I’m not all that social.” 

Jared simply huffs a little laugh at the understatement.

Jensen shouldn’t move closer. He dare not move closer. 

And yet he walks to the edge of the mattress anyway and sits down, acting like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“You want to talk about all this?” Jensen gestures at the paperwork, the ledger and the file folder full of bills.

“This is the sad state of the farm’s finances,” Jared says ruefully. “I started building the field last year. It hasn’t been cheap. And once I fell behind on mortgage payments, the full amount came due. Like Megan said, since the bank owns the debt, they have the legal right to foreclose, or to sell it to someone who can force me out.”

“Christ, that sucks. What about the field? Any chance you can convince your sister to find some way to protect it if you sold the place? Like, like a deed restriction or something?” Jensen doesn’t know much about this kind of thing, but he bets there are plenty of lawyers back in Manhattan who do.

“Forget it,” Jared replies. “The ‘partners’ Megan mentioned are a big agri-business corporation. They’re buying up all the single farms around to make one massive conglomerate. Their first priority will be to plow under the baseball field.” 

Jared’s still got his head down, aimlessly straightening the papers, and the last bit comes out rough, like it hurts Jared to even say it. 

Jensen can’t stand the sound of Jared’s pain. Or the idea of the field being destroyed. And the way to fix it seems so obvious.

“Jared,” he begins, thinking how to phrase this diplomatically, “I’m not exactly poor, you know.”

Jared glances up sharply, eyes narrowing. “Great, you can chip in for groceries when we go up to town next.”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind. Maybe the reason you were supposed to find me was so I could help you with this?” 

Oh please. Please let him help. Let him for once do something worthwhile. 

But Jared’s already shaking his head. “I don’t think so.” 

“I have the funds,” Jensen insists. “I can retire the debt right now, with one call to the bank. Or—” Jensen’s got most of his last two film’s paychecks socked away, but not much of it liquid. He could sell the apartment and get at least $5 million, even on short sale, but that would take time too. How much does Iowa farmland even cost? “—Or at least shore it up enough that you can keep your land.” 

“That’s—that’s very generous of you. But I’ve got to ride this out myself. If I let you pay, if this becomes your next charity, well—“ he trails off and his mouth twists as if swallowing something sour. “That’s not how I want it. I didn’t bring you here because you’re rich and could bail me out of impending bankruptcy.”

“Then why _did_ you bring me here?” It comes out angrier than Jensen intends, because, fuck, this doesn’t have to be some stupid matter of principle. Of course Jared’s not a charity. Jared is… is… There’s not a word that can encompass him. 

“I have no idea,” Jared replies. 

He’s too calm, when what Jensen wants is for him to fight. To fight for the field, for the farm, for the Voice that commands them to build, go, believe.

“None?” Jensen grates out, pushing when he normally would draw back, run away.

He doesn’t know what he expected, but Jared’s response is anything but argument. 

“Well, I think I have some idea.” Jared reaches out to lay his hand carefully over Jensen’s fist where it’s clenched on his thigh. Jared’s palm is wide and warm, and his hand engulfs Jensen’s completely. All the air in the room is somehow thicker, hotter, than it was a second ago. And a swarm of butterflies starts conducting an aerial show inside Jensen’s belly. 

They both stare down, frozen, for a long second, then Jared curls his thumb around, stroking it slowly along the ridge of Jensen’s knuckles. And just that simple touch is more erotic, more arousing than the mouth of Hollywood’s neediest twink on Jensen’s dick.

“Shit,” Jensen says, pulling away.

“Sorry. God, sorry,” Jared blurts out, brow furrowing. “I’m such an idiot. You don’t want that.”

“No.” Jensen quickly grabs Jared’s arm to keep him from scrambling away. “I do. I do want it… more than I should. It’s just—Jared, god, you’re so beautiful and so—so innocent and I’m covered in years-old filth and guilt. If you get too close to me, it’s going to smear all over you.” Jensen probably shouldn’t have said any of that aloud. It’s admitting too much. 

Jared stares for a moment, then laughs at him. The motherfucker laughs. 

“I’m neither beautiful nor innocent, believe me,” Jared insists, rolling his eyes. Then his expression turns serious, even as the smile still lingers on his mouth. “I’m just a man. And so are you.” Wraps his big palm around the back of Jensen’s neck and leans in, their faces only a scant foot apart. “You’re still struggling with things in your past. I get that. But I don’t care about those. I only care about who you are now. And who you want to be tomorrow.”

“You should care.” Jensen whispers, meaning all his failings.

“I could. I do. Care. More than I should,” Jared replies, echoing Jensen’s words. There’s want and something else, something terrifyingly powerful, in his gaze.

Jared slides the hand on Jensen’s neck up to cradle the back of his head and urges him gently closer. 

Jensen can’t resist, he leans in the last few inches and lays his mouth across Jared’s. 

It’s like riding a bike, this kissing thing. His mouth moves instinctively under Jared’s, and at a gentle nudge of Jared’s tongue, his lips open to let him in. Jared tastes amazing, underneath the trace of his dumb kids' toothpaste there's some kind of savory, unique flavor that has Jensen chasing it, diving in deeper. Jensen leans up into him, kissing Jared like he can make him forget every other kiss that’s come before. Just like Jensen has. It's wet, deep, long, until Jensen is dizzy with lack of air. He's hungry, frantic, trying to deepen the kiss even further. But Jared holds him back. He holds Jensen’s head in place, turning things soft, pulling away to nip at Jensen’s lower lip. It feels like Jared’s being careful, tentative even, like maybe he’s changed his mind, not sure whether this is a good idea.

And maybe he’s right. 

When Jared finally leans away, Jensen doesn't chase his mouth, despite how much he aches to. 

He lets his eyes fall closed so he doesn’t have to see the regret in Jared’s expression. He talks quickly, wanting to say it first. “This is probably a mistake. I’m such a fucked-up mess.”

But Jared doesn’t agree. Doesn’t draw away. “That’s not what I see,” he says, pressing his forehead against Jensen’s. “That’s not what you are.”

“You don’t know—“ Jensen trails off, not even knowing how to start.

“I know plenty. I know enough.” 

Jensen gathers his courage enough to pull back and look at him. “I’m not very good at this.”

“What?” Jared says, a smile playing around his mouth, “kissing?”

“No. Letting kissing mean something.”

"Oh." Jared turns serious at that confession, asks softy, “How long since the last time you’ve done this?

“A long time,” Jensen says. “Nothing…nothing legit since before the accident. I mean, there were times—“ The telling is like ashes in his mouth. “—times with strangers. You know, like the man sang, ‘when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there.’” He recalls cruising random corners of Riverside Park, the guys who would get on their knees at the flash of a $50, no conversation necessary. “But I stopped even that, so worried one of those guys would recognize me, that I’d find paparazzi back on my doorstep raring for a new scandal, my face back in the tabloids.” 

Jared nods. “Look, we can kiss, or fuck, or lie here in my bed and hold hands. Whatever you want.” His hand is still on the back of Jensen’s neck, and his thumb starts drawing soothing circles under Jensen’s ear. And that, that alone, is sending pulses of heat through him. The thought of Jared offering more makes his gut twist with desire. 

Jared goes on, ”Whatever you want, is what I want.”

“But my knee—“ 

“We can work around the knee,” Jared says, coaxing Jensen closer, putting his lips right up to Jensen’s ear, his breath a warm caress. “What do you _want_?”

“I want to fuck you,” Jensen whispers back. “Jesus Christ, I want to fuck you so bad. But I can’t—“ 

Jared’s answering grin was more beautiful than sunrise. “You can. I mean, _I_ can. You’re just going to lay down and let me ride.” 

Jared doesn’t wait for more protests, just pushes at Jensen’s shirt, working it up, over his head. His hands smooth over Jensen’s shoulders, warm and wide, slowly down his chest, his belly, then Jared pulls him onto the bed, carefully tugging, rolling Jensen over his bulk and onto his back on the center of the mattress. 

Jensen’s body is wound tight and filled with want, cock hard already, tenting his pajamas. The startling feeling of skin on skin is incredible, like a dream come true, strange and familiar at the same time. He cautiously runs his hands down Jared’s back, reveling in the lean muscles, as exquisitely defined as the rest of him, the sharp wings of his shoulder blades and the dip of his spine with the rising curve at the end. But his ass—my god— Jared’s ass is perfect, firm and round. Jensen lets his fingertips flit across the soft fabric covering it and feels Jared’s chest heave as he sucks in a breath.

“Can we take these off?” Jared asks huskily, tugging at the waistband of Jensen’s pajamas.

“Yeah,” Jensen agrees. “Yeah.”

Jared rolls off him and shucks his own pants as Jensen raises his hips to slip his off. His knee gives him a warning twinge as he kicks them from around his ankles, but Jensen ignores it as he watches Jared lean over to the side table and pull out a tiny black bottle.

Jared dives back into the drawer and paws around for a second before looking up at Jensen anxiously. “No condoms,” he says. 

“Jared,” Jensen replies. “I haven’t had sex in years. I’m fucking clean.”

“Clean for fucking?” Jared teases, the look of relief on his face almost comical. “Me, too. So clean. Squeaky clean. And honestly—“ he kneels back onto the bed closer to Jensen, scooping up the bottle of lube and squirting a generous puddle of it into his hand. “— I just want to feel you, all of you, when you’re up inside me.” 

Jensen’s cock jerks hard at the words, bouncing against his stomach where he’s getting fuller by the second. Because Jared is throwing a leg over him, straddling Jensen’s hips with those long, long legs. He’s naked and powerful and towering over Jensen. 

Jared reaches around his body and Jensen pictures it with perfect clarity, Jared’s index finger maybe his middle finger, too, slipping between the cheeks of his ass to play around the rim, slicking it with lube.

Jensen can’t even breathe. Eyes wide, every nerve standing on edge as he watches. Oh fuck. He can see the moment Jared presses in through the taut ring, easing his fingers inside his body. Jared's eyes close, his arm flexes with a slow pumping motion. He must be twisting and widening with each push, and the thought makes Jensen moan. He bites his lower lip, pressing his palm against his cock to hold himself off. 

It’s the hottest thing Jensen’s ever seen seen in his life, Jared fucking his own fingers with slow, rotating thrusts of his hips, his cock stiff and proud, jutting up from the silky curls of his pubes. There a sloppy, wet sound as Jared pushes the lube up inside himself, and Jensen can feel want clawing, swirling in his gut, whole body lighting up, sweat breaking out in the small of his back. 

“Come here,” he growls, reaching out to touch, to take Jared by the hips and draw him closer. 

He’s never been a big fan of sucking dick, wonders if he even remembers how. But he _has_ to get his mouth on Jared, has to taste. Jensen closes his lips around the tip of Jared’s cock. The taste of his flesh bursts across Jensen’s tongue, the velvety head, the thin skin of the shaft. He tries to remember what feels best, experiments with rubbing his tongue all over, flickering it along the pronounced ridge, and smiles around his full mouth as Jared jerks and cries out above him. Jared's hands flutter up, over his shoulders to cup Jensen's face gently, palms over his jaw and thumbs running over his cheeks. Jensen turns his head and shoves Jared's plump cockhead into the softness of his cheek so Jared can feel it under his hands. There’s a bright burst of precome over Jensen’s tastebuds as Jared moans again, louder. Then drags his cock out and away.

“Oh good God, Jensen,” Jared gasps. “Next time. Next time. But you gotta stop now or I’m gonna—I need you inside me before I come.” 

Jared scoots his knees back so that he’s hovering over Jensen’s hips again. Jensen fists his hands in the bedsheets, letting anticipation wash over him, drag at him, riptide. Jared wraps his hand around Jensen’s dick, standing it up, with a light grip stroking up the underside, tracing out the beat of Jensen’s pulse in the center vein. He pauses to squirt more lube into his palm, then, with a slick fist, gives Jensen a few more long slow strokes up and down. 

It’s all going so fast, Jared spreading his legs wider, holding Jensen's dick steady, the warm skin of his ass brushing over, teasing the head of Jensen’s cock. Jared’s hips rock and sway, and Jensen’s unprepared for the lightening strike sensation of Jared pushing down onto him, sinking, opening, the slick, thick ring of muscle sucking him in. Jensen can see Jared’s thighs quiver as he tries to work himself down on Jensen, and Jensen’s going to come, with just barely the head of his dick pressing into Jared’s wet hole. 

He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten everything. It’s like the first time all over again, all new, the tightness, the heat, the squelch of lube and the sight of the glistening wet tip Jared’s cock bobbing in front of him, the taste of his precome lingering on Jensen’s tongue. Jensen’s about to burst out of his own skin, overwhelmed and urgent.

He scrabbles with his feet, trying to move, to get leverage, to thrust up into that luscious heat. But his knee sends out a harsh red lash of protest. 

He winces, and Jared must see it because he says, “Hey, hey. Hold still, I’ll get us there.” 

And then he sees Jared clenches his jaw. He goes and _shoves_ himself the rest of the way down Jensen’s length. 

They both cry out simultaneously at the sudden stretch, so achingly tight around Jensen’s cock he knows it must be searing Jared’s gut. He sees a pink flush spreading down his throat, across his chest, his belly taut. But his nipples and his cock are still hard. And he's smiling, a bit wryly.

“Wow, that’s deep,” Jared pants, head falling forward, a sheen of sweat glazing the hollow of his throat. “Been awhile for me, too. You’re so huge, so far up in me, Jensen, damn,” Jared babbles. His hips start making small, almost unconscious circles.

Jensen’s body answers, unconsciously too, he can't help it, can't stop himself, rocks up and in with the tiniest of thrusts. He lifts his hands to palm Jared's inner thighs, rubbing and soothing the pale skin there. 

“Yes,” Jared hisses, muscles beginning to unlock. He rolls his hips slightly to work himself up and down on Jensen tentatively at first, and then faster. Jensen can feel Jared stretching, opening to him, each rise and fall coming easier. Jensen’s so hard now it hurts, his dick like a solid iron bar being raked through the coals of a forge, a white-hot throbbing mess, the rise of pleasure starting at the base of his spine and flowing outward, everywhere. 

Jensen slides his hands upward, splaying them across Jared’s belly, all that beautiful bare skin, taking his hips and holding them almost possessively as Jared grinds down harder. Jensen rises to meet him, barely remembering to use only his good leg for leverage, straining, wanting more, and he has to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek to hold off, hold off just a minute more. He doesn’t want this to end. 

Jared’s knees are spread now as wide as they can go, his chin thrown toward the ceiling, throat bared. Jensen's awkward, lop-sided thrusting has Jared lurching around like a barfly on a mechanical bull. He’s rolling his hips like a pro, pumping, grinding down Jensen, his legs working, his ass so motherfucking tight, squeezing, owning Jensen cock. His hands come down onto Jensen’s chest for balance, blunt nails scratching, sending sparks across Jensen’s nerves, and when he feels Jared thumb over his nipples, _hard_ , Jensen nearly bucks him off for real as his entire body jolts at the sensation. 

“Jared, please.” Jensen’s practically begging—no, he’s fucking outright begging—his voice rough, caught in his throat, choked with need. “I’m too close. Let me feel you. Come. Come all over me.” 

“God. Fuck. Just—just touch me. ”

 _Shit, shit._ He really has forgotten everything. Jensen hurries to wrap his palm around Jared’s cock, and it burns him with its heat. He strokes in time with Jared’s plunging hips, tight up the long length of it, a twist over the fat, slippery head to show he does actually know what the fuck he’s doing. 

Jensen watches, holding his breath, drinking in the sight of Jared’s orgasm rolling up on him. How his eyelashes flutter shut as he drives down, hips swiveling, torso rolling like a dancer, how he lets out little breathy cries— _ah, ah_ —as Jensen’s dick rubs over that sweet spot inside. Jensen jacks Jared’s dick twice more and he comes, pulsing over Jensen’s fingers. His thick load splatters over Jensen’s belly and chest, the smell tangy and earthen, Jared’s whole body shuddering on top of him. 

The convulsions wring at Jensen’s cock where it’s lodged, and he moans so loud it's practically a shout. He arches back, pressing his head into the pillow, and grips Jared’s hips tight to jam up into him as far as he can possibly go. His balls seize up rock-hard and he shoots, so much, so much, he can feel the hot flood, the sheer fucking amount of it, creaming Jared full. It slides around his dick, making Jensen’s last few wild thrusts suddenly smooth and easy.

He’d forgotten. He’d fucking forgotten how good this is.

Jared’s slumped over him now, whispering senseless words right into Jensen’s mouth, _yeah, yeah, like that_. And Jensen breathes him in, trying desperately to fill his aching lungs with air, with Jared. But it turns out breathing is less important than kissing, because Jensen buries one hand in Jared’s hair and pulls him all the way down, biting at his lips and sucking his tongue in, devouring him, wild kisses, that eventually ease and slow and stop. 

Then Jared’s face is in the crook of Jensen’s neck, Jensen’s cock still inside him, their limbs tangled up, sweat and jizz and aftershocks caught between. 

Jensen untangles his hand from Jared’s hair. He allows himself to smooth it back for a second, but then lets it drop to the mattress.

This is always the part he hates. The part where sex turns into awkward goodbyes. 

 

***

 

When Jared finally levers himself off of Jensen and murmurs about being right back, that’s his cue. Time to leave. Time to steal away. But for some reason Jensen’s still there when Jared comes back from the bathroom. And if there’s one good thing about not making his escape, it’s the sight of Jared walking back across the room. 

Jensen carefully soaks in the sight of Jared’s naked body, wanting to remember it. Every line, every proportion, more perfect than the statue of a Greek god.

“Would you like to stay?” Jared asks. He holds up a hand before Jensen can make an excuse, slipping under the covers. “No pressure. Just… It’s a big bed. It’d be nice not to have to sleep in it alone.” 

Jared immediately turns his back to him and snuggles down into his pillow like it’s nothing. Like they’re a perfectly normal couple or something. It’s almost entirely outside of Jensen’s realm of experience. He never been a couple-y type of guy. Much more in the love-‘em-and-leave-‘em variety. But it seems like it’d be stupid and gauche to get up and leave now. 

Jensen pictures himself gracelessly hobbling around the bedroom, rummaging around to find his pajama pants, or just limping bare-assed across the hall. The only Greek god he resembles is Hephaestus. A cripple only Aphrodite could love. 

Love?

Fuck. It’s scary just to hear the word inside his own head.

He scoots to the far edge of the bed, but doesn’t get up. He can still feel Jared’s heat from three feet away. He notes the mattress’s small vibrations as Jared breathes. How do people even share a bed? This is ridiculous. 

Jensen closes his eyes and sleeps.

 

***

 

The car. The steering wheel. The dark. The highway.

Through the windshield, illuminated by the headlights, he can see trees whipping by, and instantly knows that tree—that one tree—is drawing nearer every second. 

He glances at the passenger seat. But instead of seeing Milo’s unctuous, eager-to-please face, he finds Jared sitting there. There’s barely enough room for Jared’s huge frame in the Ferrari, but he still manages to look like he’s sprawling, his head tilted back against the headrest, his grin framed by infectious dimples. He’s looking at Jensen like there’s nothing else in the world he wants to see. Too calm. Too trusting. 

Jensen’s hands are clamped in a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. It won’t help. It never helps.

He tries to speak. To shout a warning. But he can’t open his mouth, can’t make a sound.

Jared puts a hand on his shoulder, his thumb rubbing Jensen’s collarbone. Jensen wills himself to move, do something. He’s got to give Jared some kind of signal, make him understand the mortal fucking danger he is in. 

He’s got to hit the brakes. He’s got to swerve them into the ditch. 

But all Jensen does is drive them straight toward catastrophe.

Outside the car, the trees suddenly turn to corn. They’re somehow racing through an ink-black cornfield. There’s rutted dirt under the tires and the road disappears. Leaves hiss and stalks thwack against the bumper and the windows as the sports car mows over them. 

And then. 

Incongruous. Inevitable. In the middle of the cornfield.

It’s there. 

The tree. 

Jared. Jared!

The impact and the scream of shearing metal and shattering glass and the airbag punch to the face all meld into a single shockwave, pain in every one of Jensen’s senses. 

This is when Jensen jolts awake. This is the end of the nightmare. 

But no. 

It doesn’t end. He’s living that night all over again. And yet it’s not Milo’s blood sprayed across the interior of the car, all over Jensen’s clothes, his skin, the smell of it thick and coppery over the stench of hot metal and tire. It’s not Milo’s skull crushed in, his face a red, shredded ruin, one sightless eye staring into Jensen’s by the sputtering light of the dashboard dials. 

It’s Jared’s. 

Jensen surges forward, reaches for Jared, for Jared’s mangled body. But Jensen’s trapped. His knee is pinned against the doorframe by the twisted column of the steering wheel. He wrenches at it and the surge of pain is so violent he retches, tears blinding him, vomit in his sinuses. He flails, grabs Jared’s arm, his hand. He entwines their fingers. Jared’s flesh is somehow already turning cold.

It’s then that Jensen opens his eyes to the blue-black calm of the bedroom. Jared’s room. Jared’s bed. 

He barely manages to stifle a cry of relief, the taste of bile in the back of his throat. He tries to control the shudders wracking him. It takes him long, disoriented seconds to think straight again. 

But once he does, the thoughts are bleak. This nightmare might not be the Voice, but the message is crystal clear just the same. Jensen’s a disaster. A shipwreck that sunk long ago and now sits rotting away. The last thing he wants is to drag Jared down to the depths, too. 

Jared said he didn’t care about Jensen’s past, but Jensen can’t seem to leave it behind. He carries it around in his body, in his head. He can’t ignore it, or will it away.

He hears Jared’s voice from a few feet away, sleep-gruff. “Hey. You okay?”

Jared’s hand brushes his shoulder, and Jensen jerks away. He rolls back, out of reach.

“Jensen?”

He realizes his breath is still coming in hitching gasps. He knows Jared can hear them, but he can’t seem to stop. 

“If it’s that nightmare—” Jared starts. 

“It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

His voice must betray him, because Jared starts to sit up. “What can I do?”

“Just leave it,” Jensen snaps, finally, way too late, finding the will to climb out of the bed. “This was probably a mistake… no, it was. It _was_ a mistake.” Jensen’s got to make it clear, even if the words claw at his chest as he says them. 

“I don’t think so.” Jared’s so fucking calm. He doesn’t even realize that Jensen is shattered glass and he’s walking around barefoot.

“I know you think the field is going to ‘ease my pain,’” Jensen says, “but it hasn’t. It can’t. I’m broken, and your magic Voice can’t put me back together. All I do is bring people pain and disappointment. I’ll only hurt you.” 

“You won’t—“

“Worry about the farm, Jared. Worry about Joe and Aldis and the other players. Don’t worry about me.” 

Shuffling naked out of the room is just as mortifying as he thought it might be.

 

***

 

But it’s not weird the next morning when—after a long night of staring at the guest room’s dark ceiling—Jensen wakes up, sunshine on his face once more. 

It should be. It should be wretched and uncomfortable as hell. Jensen had sex with Jared and then freaked out on him in the middle of the night. Jared ought to be calling the nearest Uber driver to offer a thousand bucks to get Jensen out of here the minute he shows his face. 

But instead Jensen’s clean clothes are outside in the hall and there’s a little yellow post-it note on the coffee machine and another post-it note with only a question mark on it stuck to a box of blueberry muffin mix. 

Jared’s clearly trying to make it as easy as possible to look him in the eye when they’re in the same room together again. 

He walks over to the kitchen window to see if Jared’s working in the barn like he was yesterday, but what he spots is Megan’s Mercedes coming up the drive. 

He quickly sets his mug of coffee down and heads outside. 

Jensen must’ve slept in a lot later this morning than he’d realized, because the first game has already started and Jared is already in the stands, along with Danneel and a couple of Jared’s buddies from last night. 

But even the visitors aren’t going to deter Jensen from finding out what kind of threat Megan might pose today. Jensen makes his way down the porch stairs and across the lawn and manages to arrive at the bleachers just as Megan does. 

From inside her purse, Jared’s sister produces a sheaf of papers, shoving them up at Jared who’s sitting on the highest row of benches. 

Jared stands so he can loom over her.

“You’re going to have to face the facts,” Jensen hears Megan say. “Your financial position is no secret. You’re going to have to sell the farm to me now or lose it before winter. Even if you have a bumper crop, which doesn’t appear likely, you’ll never be able to keep up with the mortgage with the acreage you’ve got planted.”

“You don’t know my finances,” Jared responds sharply, “and you don’t know what I can pay. Now either sit down and watch the game, or go on home.” 

“What game?” Megan yells. "There's nothing there! You build a baseball field in the middle of nowhere and you sit around here and stare at nothing!" 

Jensen tries to imagine how Megan must view the field, blind to all the activity. No wonder she thinks they’re all bat-shit crazy.

“Come down from there,” Megan demands.

“I’m staying right here. As long as I own the land, I own it, and I’m staying.” Jared’s holding a handful of grapes and he shoves them in his mouth to cap his defiance.

And then it happens. Megan reaches up to grab at Jared, tugging on the leg of his jeans. His weight shifts and his foot skids on a slick, worn spot on the wood. Jared’s arms pinwheel and then he falls forward as if diving into a pool. Jensen’s heart is a steel wrecking ball smashing through the walls of his chest as he watches helplessly. Jared seems to fall in slow motion, and it takes forever for him to come down with a sickening thud on the hard, sun-baked sod behind the bleachers. 

Jensen can’t run, but he does anyway. Then he’s standing over Jared where he lies on his back. Megan hovers, her hands opening and closing, reaching, then pulling back. 

“Should we move him?” Jensen asks, looking wildly around at the others who’ve gathered around, hoping for advice. 

Megan looks like she’s about to burst into tears. “I don’t know!”

“Any of you a doctor? A nurse?”

Jared’s friends all shake their heads no.

Jensen curses himself for not knowing anything about first aid, not knowing any medical techniques. After the accident, you’d think he’d have immersed himself in Red Cross training. But goddamn him to hell, he had not.

Jared’s lips are turning a frightening bluish shade, his chest hitching for breath that he can’t catch. His skin appears pale through his tan. It seems to Jensen that he’s convulsing. 

“Call an ambulance!” he cries.

“It’s a twenty-minute drive from town,” Megan answers mournfully, but she pulls out her phone anyway. 

Jensen glances toward the field. The ball players have assembled on the left-field grass and stand silent, staring, like an honor guard, or like vultures. 

All except for Aldis. He’s loping in from right field, lean and agile. But as he gets closer, his features start to change, his step slows. He seems to become smaller. His baseball uniform fades away and is replaces by a black suit and tie. His ballcap disappears, leaving a bald head. As Jensen watches, the dark leather of his glove expands and reshapes into an old-fashioned doctor’s bag.

The man who comes to the edge of the fence is not Moonlight Hodge, the rookie baseball player, but the elderly Doctor Hodge that he and Jared spoke with in the wee hours of their strange night in Michigan.

He hesitates for only a second, but in that second Jensen lives a dozen anguished hours. Then Doc steps over the line and makes his way toward them.

Jensen hears Megan gasp in surprise, but he doesn’t even bother glancing her way. Every iota of his attention is on Jared, lying lifeless at his feet.

“What have we got here?” Doc says matter of factly, his voice once more creaking with age.

“He fell,” Jensen grits out.

Doc puts a hand on Jensen’s shoulder for support and eases himself down to his knees. He brushes a hand across Jared’s forehead and then his chest. 

“He’s choking,” Doc says simply. “Help me sit him up.”

Jensen grabs Jared’s limp form under one armpit, the guy named Chad steps up to grab the other, and together they heave Jared’s torso up to a sitting position. Doc slaps Jared on the back sharply, but there’s no result. 

Jensen can feel tears of frustration forming at the corners of his eyes. Doc remains calm. “Jensen, get down behind him,” he instructs. 

Jensen doesn’t balk, doesn’t suggest someone else do it. He quickly clambers gracelessly to the ground, ignoring the sharp protests from his knee, until he’s got Jared in the vee of his spread legs, Jared’s back leaning against his chest. 

Doc looks at Jensen. “I don’t have the strength anymore. You’re going to have to do the Heimlich Maneuver. Do you know it?”

Jensen shakes his head no, but then dimly recalls someone describing it once, he can’t even remember the context. He quickly wraps his arms around Jared, grabbing him around the middle and balling his fist in his gut.

Doc adjusts Jensen’s hands. “A quick jab,” he orders. “Up and in.” 

Jensen does.

“Again,” Doc urges.

Jensen heaves so hard he’s gonna break one of Jared’s ribs, but suddenly he feels Jared’s chest expand as he sucks in air. 

Doc reaches up and pries Jared’s mouth open, hooking out whole grape. Jensen feels Jared cough, gasp, pulling in a deep, unhampered breath. His head lolls against Jensen’s shoulder. 

Doc puts a hand on Jared's neck to feel his pulse, then pulls away to pat his cheek tenderly. Jensen can feel Jared’s eyelashes flutter against his neck. 

“Looks to be okay,” he says. “He’s coming around now. He a strong young man. I don’t imagine there’ll be any after effects.”

Relief washes over Jensen in a wave. “Thank you, Doc.”

The old man lifts up a hand and a few of the onlookers hurry forward to help him up from where he’s kneeling. They haul Jensen and Jared up as well. Jensen reaches out and slings one of Jared’s arms over his shoulders as they stand, before anyone tries to move him away. He shifts all his weight onto his good leg so he can support Jared without both of them falling back down.

Megan’s got her hand on Doc’s arm, looking up at him with wonder. 

“I saw—“ she says, blinking slowly, dumbfounded, “All of a sudden this kid runs off the field and—” She glances toward the diamond, where the rest of the players still stand lined up. She gulps. “—Where did all these people come from?”

Doc gives Megan a small smile. “There’s hope for you yet.”

He leans over to pick up his bag and when he stands he jerks his chin at Jared. “You all right, son?”

Jensen looks up into Jared’s face, sees his color is back and his eyes are clear again. He’s barely leaning on Jensen at all anymore, but hasn’t moved away from where he’d tucked up against Jensen’s side. 

“Yeah, Doc,” Jared replies, voice raw and sounding unexpectedly somber. “But what about you? You can’t go back, can you?” 

And just when Jensen thought he’d recovered from his panic, the bottom drops out of his stomach again. Because Jared’s question exposes exactly what Doc has sacrificed by stepping off the field. 

There’s no bringing young Aldis back again.

“It’s okay,” Doc says gently, his gaze shifting back and forth between the two of them. “I got someone waiting for me out there.” His face breaks into a grin. “Better get home before Beth starts to thinking I have a girlfriend.” 

He gives them a little salute, like he’s touching the brim of a ballcap, and then to the rest of the little crowd around them. As he turns and walks back toward the corn, the players on the field make way. As he goes by, they call out. 

“Good work, Doc.”

“Way to go, Doc.”

Before he reaches the edge of the crop, Shoeless Joe calls out. “Hey, Rookie!” 

Doc turns to look over his shoulder. 

“You were good.”

Doctor Hodge nods and disappears into the corn. 

Next to him, Jensen feels Jared give a little sniffle. He looks up in time to catch Jared wiping his eyes on the heel of his hand like a kid. The sight makes Jensen’s heart nearly melt with tenderness.

“I thought I lost you,” Jensen says, voice pitched low, his own throat unexpectedly tight.

“You didn’t. You saved me.”

“Doc saved you.”

“Listen,” Jared says pulling away so he can turn and look Jensen in the eye. “You were here when I needed you and you saved my life. You tried to tell me that all you do is hurt people? I know first-hand that’s not true.” 

Jensen’s shaking his head in denial, but something in Jared’s words strikes deep, a keen blade slicing through ancient, knotted ropes.

“Jared? We’re gonna take a break,” Shoeless Joe interrupts from near home plate, indicating the rest of the players who are filing out toward the same spot in the corn where Doc had departed. “Glad you’re okay. We’ll start up again after lunch. See you in a while, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jared replies absently, still staring at Jensen. 

“Hey! You wanna come with us?”

“Who, me?” At that, Jared’s head jerks up. He sounds amazed, like the thought had never occurred to him. 

“Not you,” Joe says, and points at Jensen. “Him.”

“Oh,” Jared says, a mixture of surprise and distress. 

At the same time, Jensen rocks back on his heels as if Joe’s finger had actually poked him in the chest. “Come with you?” 

“Out there.” Joe jerks a thumb toward the corn. 

Jensen blinks, tries to harness his whirling thoughts. “When I went looking before, I only found more questions. Are there actually any answers out there?” 

“Come find out,” the player says, his expression inscrutable.

This is it. It feels like his entire trip has been leading up to this moment. Curiosity bubbles up in him like a hot spring. Jensen glances at Jared to see what he thinks of this… this bizarre invitation. To his surprise, Jared’s face seems even more stricken than when he lay on the ground dying, minutes before. But before Jensen can ask him what’s wrong, Jared straightens up to his full height and sucks in a deep breath. He puts his hands on Jensen’s shoulders. 

“Okay, so look,” Jared urges. “I think this is your chance. It’s your chance at peace. Out there?” He indicates the vast, breeze-blown field. “There’s no injured knee. No regrets for past mistakes. You can go with them and be young and whole, like Aldis was.”

Oh. There’s that blade again. 

It’s funny how, just a week ago, Jared’s description would’ve sounded like heaven. But Jensen finds now that all he can feel is Jared’s hands on him, and all the can think to ask is one question.

“Do you _want_ me to go?”

Jared doesn’t answer at first. The skin around his eyes is tight, the corners of his lips tucked in. How typical, that he can’t bring himself to lie. But he obviously thinks _Jensen_ wants to go, and is willing to let him, to encourage him. 

“That’s not important. This’s about what you need. The Voice told me: ‘Ease his pain.’ _Your_ pain, Jensen. That’s why you’re here. The field can ease all that pain.”

Even as the words are leaving Jared lips, they start to fade, mute, like a radio dial turning down. Jensen’s head is filled with that same silent hum he’s felt before. In New York. In Michigan. His fingertips tingle and the whole word comes into sharper focus, everything outlined in bright strokes.

“No—” he says slowly. “No. I think I’ve already found the way to ease my pain. And it’s not out in that cornfield.”

“What?” 

Jensen sucks in a breath, his tone rising with excitement, with the certainty that fills him head to toe. “The Voice first told you: ‘if you build it, he will come,’ right? Well, what if—what if it wasn’t talking about Joe, or the other players? What if it was me? What if you built it for _me_?”

“Oh." Jared blinks. "Oh, I did. I built it for you.” He whispers it back, like it’s a secret only the two of them can share.

“And ‘go the distance.’ We needed to find Doc, to have that quest that would get me here. And once I was here, when I was told to ‘believe in it?’ The Voice wasn’t referring to that,” he waves a dismissive hand toward the field and the players and the corn. “It was this.” Jensen gestures back in forth in the small space between them. The two of them. “I have to believe in this. We have to believe in this.”

He sees understanding dawn across Jared's face, hope and agreement reflecting back at him.

He turns toward Joe. “Thanks for the invitation,” Jensen calls out, projecting from the gut like he’s on stage and needs everyone in the audience to hear his lines. “But I think I’m going to stick around here for awhile.” 

He backs up a few steps, so that he’s almost pressed against Jared’s chest, just to make his point clear. 

From out on the diamond, Joe gives him one of those long, judgmental looks. But then he cracks a smile. “I thought you might say that.”

He nods and the turns to trot off the field, gone like the rest.

Jensen hears Megan murmur behind him. “Holy shit.” And then louder she says, “Jared, you’re keeping this field.”

Jensen jumps a little in surprise. He’d forgotten anyone else was here.

Jared glances over his shoulder to look at her, slinging an arm around Jensen to pull him closer. “You bet your ass we are.”

“We?” Jensen cocks an eyebrow at him. The rest of Jared’s friends who’d been hanging back start to wander up toward them. “So you’re going to let me help you pay the mortgage on your farm?”

“I guess so… but then it will be _our_ farm. Are you okay with that?”

Jensen allows himself one deep breath before answering. “I'm okay.” And he realizes, with surprise, that it might even be true. 

He lets himself lean into Jared's side. Just a little.

This was Iowa. This was heaven.

**Author's Note:**

> Super special thanks to electricalgwen for giving me great beta. She only got to see part of this, so all errors and typos and nonsense are my fault! And I beg you to go leave feedback on the work of my precious artist, dollarformyname (http://dollarformyname.livejournal.com/82593.html). She has been so, so patient with me. And huge hugs to the wonderful spn_cinema challenge mods!


End file.
